A few years before I wrote the first draft of this book, summer 2015, I attended Portsmouth Poise, an Arts gathering organised by Ed Woodruffe, Trudy Barber and Elaine Hamilton. Each attendee was asked to select an item from various objects in a glazed cabinet and instantly compose a five-minute short story to be read later that evening. I chose a burned crumpet, a bite taken from it. It had the following note attached:
PortsmouthPoise, . "This homemade crumpet was one of a batch baked in the kitchen of the "Cat and Fiddle" pub in Stepney, in London"s East End, on June 8th 1924. Bessie O"Riordan, who ran the pub, made crumpets every year on her son Jack"s birthday, because they were his favourite food. Unfortunately, Jack had been missing, believed killed in action since 1917, but she con
