Objects of Affection

What do Miss Schofield and ' the gang' find to talk about at their table in the canteen? Yesterday they were discussing the nasty rash Pauline Lucas's mother keeps getting on her elbows and there was quite a lively discussion about runner beans as part of a calorie-controlled diet. Miss Schofield puts her social success down to the fact that she doesn't talk about herself and she laughs, of course. She always laughs.

'Grown men gadding off on bikes,' says Mrs Shorter. And on this Sunday in spring of 1911 the members of a cycling club escape from their womenfolk for a run in the country. Mr Shuttleworth has a puncture, Ernest has a paddle and Edgar a little fling. Then they go home. Why should things ever change?

What with little Stephen doing his O-levels and Molly and Harold up night after night, Dad has ended up in a corporation home. There's a choice of puddings and the grounds are tip-top, but Dad simply gazes at the outside wall. What's on the other side of it, the nice nurse, knows, but he's not telling.

Les is an old-fashioned boy but very handy about the house: Hoovering, ironing ... he has all that at his fingertips. His mother wants him to make his mark in the world, and he does make his mark but not where she had hoped.

Mrs Rhodes is busy staring out of the window while Mr Rhodes is just about to look up Helsinki when they have a caller. It's a social worker come to pester them about hypothermia, what else? Mr and Mrs Rhodes have a Dimplex, but they aren't good mixers, but then June isn't a very good social worker.