Snapshot: My sister and her mystery friend

In the summer of 1946, we were on holiday, walking along a street in, I think, Rhyl, North Wales. My sister Dolly is on the right, and her friend who is linking arms with me.

A street photographer snapped us and gave my sister this proof copy. The photograph captures the innocence of those happy days. With our parents and my other sister we had come through the second world war, experiencing Anderson shelters and Nazi air raids during which some 4,000 lives were lost, including the Liverpool blitz of May 1941. Now there was an atmosphere of optimism, opportunity and fun.

My sister was an inspiration. She had been denied a place at Blackburne House, a prestigious Liverpool girls grammar school, because my parents did not feel able to provide the necessary financial support. This was before the Butler Education Act of 1944. When I gained a grammar school place in that same year, Dolly guided me and helped me with my studies. A talented pianist, she introduced me to classical music, teaching me to become her page turner. After being head girl at her Priory Road secondary school, she learnt Gregg shorthand and used it in the service of the local Labour party as secretary. A member of the Left Book Club, she encouraged my interest in politics. Later, she gave up her interests to became a devoted mother.

Dolly died from lung cancer in 2003. At her funeral, the church was full, attended by members of the U3A branch of which she had been secretary. Although not one to fuss, she would have been secretly pleased by this show of respect and recognition.

Shortly before she died, I asked her about the friend in the photograph but she was unable to remember her name. So, who are you, girl on the left?

You will now be in your late 80s and if you see this please contact me. Otherwise the girl who linked arms with me on that summer’s day 69 years ago will for ever remain a mystery.

Bobby Lamb

Playlist: AKA ‘socks and ducks and rock’n’roll’

Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll by Ian Dury

Sex and drugs and rock and roll / Is all my brain and body need

My twins, Riley and Roxy, are four. One of their favourite games is Playing Daddy’s CDs, which is great for keeping them happy while I am cooking. They sit on the counter beside the CD player in the kitchen and take turns choosing discs from the pile. Roxy always picks What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong and demands that I pick her up so we can waltz around the kitchen together. It’s lovely.

Riley is harder to please. He ruthlessly rejects track after track, after only a few seconds of listening, like a sort of infant Simon Cowell. At first I thought he was only interested in taking the shiny discs out of their boxes and pressing the buttons on the CD player but it soon became clear that Riley will only accept cuts that kick in with 100% killer baselines from the start.

He has recently developed a passion for Ian Dury (pictured) which has resulted in some serious pogoing around the kitchen. I had to play Riley’s current favourite song four times during breakfast this morning, before packing him off to nursery, happily singing at the top of his little voice: “Socks and ducks and rock’n’roll are very good indeed!”

I wonder what the nice nursery ladies will have to say to him when he discovers the actual words to this song …

Andrew Miller

We love to eat: Grandad’s masterly rock cakes

Ingredients

225g self-raising flour
75g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
125g unsalted butter
150g dried fruit
1 free-range egg
1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4 and line a tray with baking paper. Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder into a bowl and rub in the butter gently until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then add dried fruit. In another bowl, beat the egg and milk together. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until the mixture just comes together as a thick, lumpy dough. Add a teaspoon more milk if the dough is not sticking together. Place golf ball-sized spoons of the mixture on to the baking tray. Leave space between them as they will flatten and spread out while cooking. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden-brown. Remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes then transfer to a cooling rack.

My grandad was the master of rock cakes. Every weekend when we visited my grandparents there would be some fresh out of the oven waiting to greet us, the scent wafting down the path to greet us. In those days, I didn’t like dried fruits, so my grandad used to make me my own special little batch of rock cakes with chocolate chips instead of fruit; a perfect children’s alternative.

Although our dear old grandad has now left us, his baking has not. His Be-Ro books were passed down to me, and every time I open one of his recipe books to try to recreate his masterpieces (which tend to be fairly meek in comparison), I am reminded of him.

Holly Herbert

• The ingredients list was corrected on 18 January 2016 to include flour

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