Over the Christmas of 1939, just three months after Britain and Australia had declared war on Germany, they went swagging together for a week and slept out under the stars in the Adelaide Hills, talking, walking and reading.

The restaurant offered bottomless drinks.

a basket of drippingly ripe peaches

The World of June 14, 1882, was writing: 'Lawn-tennis has not to answer for many accidents, so that two in a week among the sphairistic ladies of Ireland seems alarming.' Croquet as a country-house pastime could not compete with the new …