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made in your garden.’ 
    ‘Be’ave,’ Netta scolded, but he grinned, unrepentant.
    ‘Eric’s coming later,’ Valmai said. ‘He’ll soon tell me what to keep and what to throw away.’
    ‘All of it, I’d say,’ Netta muttered.
    ‘Can I have that old toboggan? Your Rhys is too old for it now.’
    ‘It’s April. You’ll wait a long time for some snow, young Jimmy.’
    Jimmy came over, having wiped his sticky fingers on his jumper, and began helping her to sort out the muddle into various piles. There were lots of pieces of wood ranging from large planks and tree branches to small offcuts stored ready for firewood, but now Valmai piled the best of the small oddly shaped pieces, knowing that if she could persuade Gwilym to start making small toys they would be useful.
    Eric came as arranged and when most of the contents were spread across the top of the garden he went inside to check on the building itself. He came out and shook his head. ‘Rotten all along the bottom,’ he reported, ‘and the roof could give way if we had a storm.’
    ‘It can be mended, though?’ Valmai asked.
    Again the shake of his head. ‘Sorry, Val, but it’s too far gone and the expense wouldn’t be worth it. It’ll never make a workshop. It’s a bit too small too. You need a new one, I’m afraid.’
    ‘Tea, anyone?’ Gwilym called from the doorway.
    Valmai hid her disappointment and instead said, ‘I’ll go to the timber yard. Sectional sheds are the cheapest, aren’t they?’
    ‘Not if we get some of the men together and make it ourselves.’ He looked at Gwilym, who was watching from the doorway, sitting in his chair, a blanket covering his legs, waving a tea-cup. ‘You’ll have to design it, mind, Gwilym. Only you know what you’ll need.’
    ‘Too expensive,’ Gwilym said, turning his chair to go back inside. ‘Nice idea, but there’s no way we can afford a new shed.’ He was half-smiling, as though relieved that his idea had been vetoed by economics.
    ‘We’ll see about that,’ Valmai muttered. She followed her husband back into the house with Eric and young Jimmy Prosser following. ‘We’ll have a cup of tea while we think about the best way to go about it,’ she announced. She filled the kettle then turned to Gwilym. ‘It’s no use putting on a pout. A new shed you need and that’s what you’ll have.’ 
    When Eric left, having promised to try and get a work team together, Jimmy went with him.
    ‘Where are you off to, young Jimmy?’ Eric asked.
    ‘Don’t know. Down through the wood to the old mill, probably. There’s a pair of wrens nesting down there and would you believe a duck has made a nest on the paddles of the waterwheel. Lucky it no longer works, eh?’
    ‘Be careful down there. That building is in a poor state.’
    ‘A hundred and fifty years old and still stronger than Gwilym’s shed!’ Jimmy said.
    ‘True enough,’ Eric agreed with a laugh.
    ‘Someone’s been sleeping there.’
    ‘What, recently?’
    ‘I found some paper and a few crusts, and an apple core, and they weren’t there the day before.’ He put a hand in his pocket and showed Eric a small brass disc that at first looked like a coin. ‘I found this too. What d’you think it is?’
    Eric looked at it. It bore a number and the name of a coal mine. ‘When the miners go down to start work they take a disc like this from the foreman and when they come back up they give him the disc back. That way the foreman knows how many men went down and knows that all the men are all safely out.’ He was frowning as he handed it back to Jimmy, who examined it with interest. The mine was the one where Gwilym’s father had worked. He was almost certain that the disk was the one proudly owned by Rhys. Did this mean Rhys had been there? Sleeping at the old mill? If he had then Gwilym and Valmai didn’t know. He was their trusted friend and he would have been told.
     
    ‘The new shed is the subject of one-sided discussions in