My days began before the sun rose and the cock crowed. My first chore was to start the fire in the range in the kitchen. To do this, I lugged logs of wood that my cousin Thomas had chopped with his axe, into the kitchen. I’d strategically place them inside the range, add kindling, usually hay or straw that couldn’t be used for anything else and set it alight. This took several hours to heat up properly and until it was done, the house was frozen stiff, whether winter or summer.

Eventually once the range was properly flaming, I’d go to the well outside and heave up 10 pails of water. Each of these I’d take into the house, with immense difficulty. I was a slight girl, brought up on not enough food with childish hands and wretched freckles that wouldn’t budge. My mousy hair would be plaited at the back of my head, and even then it got in the way.

I’d make my betters breakfast and they’d go out to work in the fields. It wasn’t until a few weeks after my Aunt’s death that my relations attitude to me grew worse.