First thing in the morning we caught a bus to Felixstowe, had a quick bathe, and shopped for sulphur candles, squat, thick, golden ones. When Graham arrived on his bike he helped us block up as many cracks as possible, lit the candles – shut the doors and stuffed them with newspaper, and then we sat around and drank tea. He was originally from Lancashire and had learned his bricklaying down the mines, joined the army at the beginning of the war and met Rosie, his wife, when he went to the laundry where she worked in Spriteshall Lane to fetch his officer’s clean uniform. He was now secretary of the Bricklayer’s Union, and a Communist.

“See you tomorrow afternoon,” he said, and left to put his younger son to bed.

Next afternoon he arrived at about 3 pm to find us admiring the swallows that were diving and swooping round the mill.

“We’ll open up, but don’t go in until the fumes have dispersed,” he warned us.

We stood back while he opened the door at the top of the ladder and then came round to open the north facing front door. The candles had certainly made a lot of fumes – the place was thick with them, and we watched them escape into the open air. Suddenly, four swallow rushed in. Graham went quite white.

“I didn’t think to look if there was a late brood” he cried, and followed them – so we followed him. There, on the “plate”, about two thirds of the way up the sloping roof we could see a couple of nests. Graham ran to the Campbells to borrow a ladder, and we felt like murderers. Back he came with a long ladder, manoeuvered it inside and up to the plate and climbed to the top.

“It’s all right,” he called quietly, “there are two nests but they are only just hatching out and the fledglings are fine. The candles must have kept them warm. Another half hour and we might have been too late.”

Carefully, he took the ladder down from between the beams and returned it. Obviously, we could do nothing more that day, but on Sunday we had the pleasure of seeing the parent birds flying in and out to feed their young, More by luck than judgement we were not guilty.
“I’ll come tomorrow after my tea and knock out a few bricks where you are going to have the french windows,” he said. “Have you ordered them?

We had. Birkin had arranged for us to get all we needed for the restoration from a large building supplies firm in Ipswich and had opened an account for us so that, as his agents, we