If you threw yourself from a train between the Puppy Green Aqueduct and the Dunkirk Toll Island, you might roll down a steep embankment and find yourself in Tame Close. The last house, at the dead end, is number nine. Dale has lived in this house his entire life. The wheels roll by at the same height as his bedroom window. They are the soundtrack of his life.

When Dale was born, in 1959, his mother had a day off work. She was lucky it was half-day Saturday. She couldn’t lift the bundles of newspapers or stand on the ladder to fill shelves with tins. On the Monday she served customers and shovelled sweets into paper bags. Dale lay wrapped in a blanket in a beer crate, atop the wooden counter. The shop was four doors from the house. The clack from the train tracks, and the shop bell door soothed him to sleep.

Nobody passes through Tame Close. Those turning in quickly realise their mistake; cars pull up to the end, and faced with a steep bramble embankment, reverse, and leave. Occasionally, customers turn left out of the shop, hoping the Close will veer round and put them somewhere else. But it doesn’t, and they are forced to retrace steps, to escape.

After his first day of school, he told his mother he had a problem with his ears. When he stood in the playground the low, rhythmic rumble of carriages was missing. He could hear only the high notes, of children. ...