Claire is born in Portsmouth, and Margaret and Alan begin adjusting their Fareham flat and daily routines around their first child.

Margaret and Alan leave the Fareham flat for a three-bedroom house in Havant, taking on a mortgage and room to expand.

Michael is born in Portsmouth, and Margaret adjusts to caring for a second child alongside three-year-old Claire.

Margaret returns to paid employment as a part-time clerical assistant at Eastbrook Junior School.

A low-cost family camping holiday in the New Forest begins with a borrowed frame tent and competing ideas about how to put it up.

The family takes its first overseas holiday, flying from Gatwick to Majorca for a week in a modest apartment.

The family’s first home computer takes over one end of the dining room and creates new uses, instructions and arguments about whose turn it is.

Margaret returns to Weymouth with Alan, Claire and Michael and tries unsuccessfully to identify the boarding house from her childhood holiday.

Claire marries Simon after organising the day with the same attention she gives to most family arrangements.

Margaret meets her first grandchild and discovers that Claire has her own clear instructions for handling a newborn.

Elliot’s first Christmas brings a new baby, Ruby’s practical objections and the family’s first Christmas after Joan’s death.

Michael and Leanne announce that they are moving in together, arriving with answers to most of Margaret and Alan’s practical questions.

Margaret and Alan first meet their new granddaughter Poppy through a video call during the winter lockdown.