My major achievement this week has been to retune the TV for the new digital set-up. Rather more accurately, I pressed a few buttons, and the TV retuned itself. Now we can get some new channels, as if we needed them. Tonight, for instance, I can’t find anything at all worth looking at. Not that I’ve been trying very hard. I’ve just had my hair cut, and Linda and Dot are discussing the pitfalls of teaching (Linda teaches hairdressing at City College). These pitfalls seem to be (a) the students and (b) the staff.

Earlier today I visited my aunt Kathleen (88) to show her some pictures that an Australian guy had sent (see earlier post) of his father and an anonymous farm scene. His father had visited the Lentons at Caistor Lane towards the end of the war, and Kathleen does remember him, but she hasn’t been able to help with any of the pictures. However, I did persuade her to tell me about her own life, during which she has lived in various parts of Africa,from the former Bechuanaland to Zimbabwe. She married twice, and both of her husbands died tragically young. Now she is back in one of the less exciting parts of Norwich and really hankering for Africa, I guess. I discovered that she looked after me when I was 10 and my father had just died. Apparently I was indignant when I discovered from the death notice that my father was 42: he had always told me he was 21 and a bit. She also revealed that she let me take my brothers on the bus to meet my mother from Coventry station, a move my mother did not much appreciate. Kathleen is going strong, with only one brother remaining: Paul, who is 86. His wife Thelma is now very ill in hospital with severe complications from Alzheimer’s Disease, but he seems as fit as ever.

During my chat with John on Sunday he mentioned that there was a site that gave distribution of surnames in the UK. It’s hosted by the National Trust, and it reveals that Lentons were roughly where I had imagined they would be – in the Peterborough area and more to the west, around Coventry and Northamptonshire. In fact the biggest concentration is in the Coventry area, but I have this theory that they originated in Nottingham, where there is a Lenton district, and moved south pretty quickly, then spread out from there. It would be fascinating to be able to go back further. In 1881, there were virtually no Lentons further north than Linicolnshire, none in Norfolk, and none in Scotland or Wales. Of course statistics can be misleading. In 1953, for instance, our family were in Coventry, but in fact my grandfather was born near Peterborough and my father in Norwich: we moved to Coventry when he got a job there as assistant education officer. All fascinating stuff. The Cousens – my wife’s maiden name – were mainly in the Southampton area in 1881: nothing in east Norfolk at all, whereas the Beales (her mother’s name ) were solid Norfolk.

The other thing I have achieved today is to book flights with British Airways to Toronto in February next year (and back in March). Always makes me a bit nervous: what if… what if…   On the down side I have discovered my god-daughter is getting married on June 5, when I am in the middle of an Italian holiday. What is she thinking of?