The second, self-contained novel, in Hamilton’s trilogy Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky was first published in 1932. It is the story of Jenny Maple, the object of Bob’s affections in the first novel in the series, The Midnight Bell. Set five or six years earlier, Jenny is working as a servant girl for three old people in Chiswick.

She is dating Tom Lockyer, a young electrician who is suffering unrequited love.

In the extract below, he takes her for a meal at a Lyons café and before they leave buys her Turkish Delight – which, ‘after food was to Jenny like a cigar crowning a banquet’. They head to a small picture house in Camden Town, where she polishes off the remaining Turkish Delight and allows Tom to hold her hand.