A hare darts under the hedgerow as a girl and boy head-up the turnpike road. The girl walks in the centre between two dusty rutted tracks, wooden yoke balanced across thin shoulders, tanned knees peeping beneath blue gingham pinafore, sun-kissed plaited ponytail swaying in rhythm with her deliberate stride. She looks straight ahead, focussed on her mission. The boy skips in and out of long grass edging a vast field, arms outstretched, reaching for cabbage whites, pockets of baggy brown cut-offs bulging with acorns and crab apples. A tall wooden sign, sticking out of the ground obstructs his path.
‘What’s it mean, Flora?’ He runs blackberry-stained fingers over the etched markings. ‘It says Oxford Nineteen Miles,’ the girl replies, with an awkward twist of her head.
‘What’s Oxford?’
The
