Coins, I think, may be something I ought to look at more closely in any future world. It is fascinating what they can reveal. William gave me two pounds – in loose change – payment, he said, for the work I had done. I did protest, as anything I had put into their smallholding could not even start to make up for their having saved my life. Nevertheless, he insisted – and he also insisted that I should go into Norwich in a day or two, to spend some of it.

I was delighted to see the old familiar coins, which, now I think about it, have been very different on some versions of Earth that I have visited. Here, though, were pennies and ha’pennies, shillings and half crowns. However, not one of them bore Charles’ head. Even the old coins, going back fifty years or so, didn’t show Elizabeth’s head. Instead, there were a series of grim-faced men.

I tried not to show my ignorance, but managed to obliquely bring up the subject of the faces on the coins. Fortunately, some sixth sense warned me not to refer to them as ‘the king’s heads’. William spoke with great fondness of Oliver VI, the last Lord Protector. The new man, Richard, was, he said, weak and shallow, compared to him. However, in William’s opinion, at least he is better than the hereditary kings to be found in most of Europe. The Kaiser, particularly, he spoke of with great bitterness – unusually so, for William strikes me as a very gentle man.

Clearly they do not have a monarchy here; when the revolution (I assume that is what overthrew them) took place, I cannot tell, and it didn’t seem wise to press William too much – obviously anyone born here would know at least that much of their own history. Sadly, I don’t. The title ‘Lord Protector’ rings bells with me, but I can’t remember if it was from British history, and if it was, from what period – in fact I’m pretty sure it was a title that was used in the North American Religious Revolution of the fifties; perhaps on this world that revolution spread to Britain too?