He was just completing the drying up after tea when he heard a murmuring from the hallway. The sound of the voice made him listen over the chatter of the early evening radio. One of the girls read a story, a bedtime story. He listened. It was about two bears, part of the usual get ready for bed routine; pyjamas, supper, teeth, bed, story, prayers, nighty-night.

He went to the bottom step on the stairs. They were on the third page now. Mum sat on the stairs, knees up, hands under chin, elbows in lap. She smiled down at Dad while their fifteen year old daughter read, her voice became more animated as the story progressed.

They both listened to the end and made play by pretending to have fallen asleep. He was now sitting beside his wife as the story ended. It was now their other daughters turn to read one of her favourites. About a Tiger.

It had been a long time. A long time since those books were opened, a long time since they we're read aloud and that reading aloud unlocked memories, a warm sense of routine, familiarity and the safeness it brought at the end of a long day when everyone was ready to rest.

This was also a new time now. Their girls reading their old bedtime stories. It felt to him like an echo of that past, yet another stage had been reached; they were growing up too fast.