I lay supine in the darkness on a springy bit of lawn near Romney Marsh and within five minutes saw three or four shooting stars. They fell fast and straight and the eye made a trail in the sky behind them, like little bits of sleet glancing on to the window of a speeding train. They almost seemed to make a swishing noise as they fell, by mental association with fireworks, perhaps. In reality they are absolutely silent.

That was last year. This year the grass was not so springy, thanks to the drought, and the sky not so dark, for last week the full moon, a shameless photobomber, blasted its bright face into view, dazzling the eye to the meteor glow-worms.

These were the annual Perseids, known to some as St Laurence’s Tears, as they fall on his feast, 10 August. St Laurence is a friendly saint, like St Martin, as well as an important one, standing, like St Stephen, for the value of deacons (and the poor). His name is in the first Eucharistic Prayer except when it is left out for reasons that are honest, but not, I feel, valid.