Two-year-old Owen picked up four flat stones and placed them, carefully, on his grandmother’s garden bench.

He leaned there for a few minutes, arranging the stones, two oval ones at the top, a circular one in the middle, a semi-circular one at the bottom.

His gran, Julie, realised he was making a face – two eyes, a nose and a mouth. The last thing he did was turn the semi-circular stone around to make it look like a smile. He stood back, pleased with his work. He said: “Him very happy!” Then he laughed and laughed.

“I couldn’t help laughing, too,” Julie told me. “But, more than that – it was like seeing him understand that a good way to make himself happy was to bring a smile to other people’s faces.”

A subtle lesson. But, may it last, and may it make many people happy.

Especially little smile-maker, Owen.

The two sisters were recalling family gatherings from “the old days”.

Hannah told me: “The telly, which was in a corner anyway, would be switched off and we’d persuade Uncle Robert to get his guitar out. Ohh, he was the best singer I ever heard. He had a beautiful voice!”

“Really?” Caroline protested. “He’d sing a line or two then he’d fade away and leave it to everyone else!”

“You know,” Hannah said, after a moment’s thought. “You’re right. But he sung those first lines so enthusiastically that the rest of us would join in and sing the evening away. That’s the sound I remember, really. Everyone singing together.”

They agreed Uncle Robert was maybe a better singer in memory than in real life. But, when it came to making other people want to sing, he was the best.

Which is surely a wonderful talent in its own right!