As a child she used to spend her pocket money on bullseyes, humbugs and licorice at a quaint old lolly shop down the lane. High on the top shelf stood a jar marked Shangri-la*. The shopkeeper kept this for grown-ups only. Frail old pensioners would sample lollies from this jar and walk out quite jauntily, she noticed.

War came. She was evacuated. Years later she returned to look for her lolly shop. It was gone. Today, sitting in her wheelchair, recalling her youthful vigour, she thinks wistfully :- "I wish I could find that lolly shop again to try some Shangri-la".

* n. an idyllic earthly paradise; an inaccessible land in the Himalayas in Lost Horizon, l933, a novel by James Hilton. The inhabitants never aged!