People in Camberwell had neither money nor electricity to burn, but they had wood from doors and broken window frames and shattered furniture gathered up in a pyramid, as the focus of their street party. The grocer had dug out some old bunting, somebody had found sparklers, and rockets that fizzed harmlessly. It was all a bright wonder to a boy of four, who should have been in bed hours ago but who stood in the street, barely noticed, watching the beery faces, waiting to ask his mum the only question he cared about that day: “Will Daddy be home soon?”