As the documentary ended I followed the credits: it had been broadcast tonight to mark the past century, since 1917, but the date of the original recording was 1976 and I thought it possible she could still have been alive then, though there was no sign of her name.

I suppose I am the same age now that she was when we first met. In 1964 I was nineteen and

caught the early bus each morning, wrapped in my rabbit fur coat, handbag swinging. She stood stiff and straight, always in a black mackintosh, her iron grey hair pulled severely back in a tight bun. Usually her friend, Mrs Philips, stood with her but they rarely spoke.

It’s strange how a pastime can bring unlikely folk together. I mentioned to Mrs Philips that I played Bridge some evenings, adding that I worked harder in those three hours than in the rest of the week. Then, pointing to her tall friend, she said ‘Miss Youlis will teach you, she’s brilliant. I play with her sometimes. You'd improve no end. Meet me here at 6 tonight and we can join her.

I had been in awe of the strange foreigner for some years wondering why she insisted on squashing in with schoolchildren and workers when obviously, as a pensioner, she had the rest of the day available. She scolded squabbling children, shouted out rule infringements, roared at anyone who spoke back to her. Talk of her past circulated, and one time she screamed the retort 'Austrian! Not German,’ when her accent had been questioned.

I followed Mrs Philips’ advice and she was right. I learned a tremendous amount about the game. Miss Youlis seemed like a magician to me. We three would bid, then designate a ‘dummy’ and carefully play the cards. How she always knew my mind, the card I would play, and which I still had left in my hand was a total mystery. My colleagues were impressed with my new skills.

Those training evenings were quiet affairs with only one cup of tea to break up the session, when I would ask Mrs Philips about her son - an attractive guy - but her usual response was that he was very happy with his fiancée, adding , 'She rides a horse,’ which seemed to impress her.

After six months of lessons, one evening Mrs Philips left early, and Miss Youlis surprised me by

saying, 'You like her son? Then pursue him. Don’t be like me, here, alone ... later,’ as she indicated the sparsely furnished room. 'Mothers don’t always know best.! She made few personal comments, so I wondered what had provoked this statement. Abruptly, she left the room, to return with a wooden-framed sepia-coloured photograph.

Passing it to me she persisted, 'His mother didn’t know best. I would have made him the perfect

wife, but I was only the servant girl. He and I were young and, yes - we were foolish - but she was enraged when she found us, ... when ... when it happened — she made me .... She blamed me! She was very proud, ruthless and she kept him away from me.’

Assuming she had lost her young man to another woman, I wiped the dust away. Then, on looking closely, I blinked in disbelief. Unaware, she continued her nostalgia. 'Yes it's true, I was a little mouse. But he should have known! I could have helped him. I could have saved his soul! Of course, I tended her illness to the end. She suffered a very painful death.’ And in the evening light I spotted a wistful smile around her thin lips.

I remained speechless as my eyes became locked again on the image of a youth - probably the most demonic and reviled man ever to exist. Then returning from her reverie, noticing me anew, she declared, 'And so she sent him to Vienna to study. His genius was lost to the world. Well. You know the rest." I bit my lip, quickly handing the photo back. Slipping it into her cardigan pocket she snapped, 'So! We stop the lessons today. You know as much as I do now.’

After spluttering my thanks I ran down the ten flights rather than waiting for the lift. I took another route to work after that and I never saw Miss Youlis again. Perhaps she caught a different bus, maybe she stopped going out; possibly she moved or died.

***

Now, picking up the remote, I paused the credits, and re-ran them three more times. There was the usual thanks to various government departments; acknowledgements to German or Austrian officials and even one saying ‘acquaintances of the Schicklgruber family’ but nothing showing her name.

However, I'd known for decades that the whispered rumour in the bus queue had been correct.

“She’s played cards with Hitler's mother”. Back then it had seemed the most outlandish notion. But in truth there was much more to Gertrude Youlis than that.