'Often I sat with her on Sunday afternoons before the fire blazing in an old-fashioned range which shone with black-leaded iron and gleaming steel. There was a home-made hearth-rug, but the rest of the floor was of stone flags, well washed and sprinkled with sand. She had had no schooling but had somehow learned to read in middle age. We would tackle the Chorley Guardian together, stumbling over the long words and improvising the pronunciation; Egypt was once read as "egg-pit".'