Greece — first time round, that is — was a late addition to the list. By 1932 the troubles of others proved too much for its government, which went some way into default. Wearily the Corporation returned to its labours. After five years it turned down Greece's opening offer, but in 1940 came another which it was provisionally minded to accept. Then the Italians tried to invade Greece, and the Germans succeeded, and all bets were off.

They remained off for two decades, but the Corporation kept trying. Greece had moved into a world where a black mark against its credit was expensive. In 1962 its dollar debts were settled, and two years later the Corporation could report that, "after a prolonged interchange of views", it had come to terms with the Greek government. There would be an offer to holders of its external sterling bonded debt.  

Holders of these bonds, who had not seen any money for a quarter of a century, could breathe more easily — at least until they read the small print of the offer. Some of them must have subscribed for the 6 per cent bond for public works, issued in the year before Greece stopped paying. Others may have stuck with the 5 per cent of 1890, which had helped to build the railway from Piraeus to Larissa, or was meant to. In all, there were 14 different issues of these bonds, and none of them would now be repaid at their face value.

Instead, the holders were invited to exchange them for new bonds, which would pay interest at a rate roughly half of what their predecessors were supposed to pay. There would also be a modest payment in exchange for all the interest which had gone unpaid for all those years and, in theory, had been mounting up. In practice, this worked out at two years' interest. The bondholders had no choice. They ate what they were given and without their Corporation would have had to go hungry.  

With Greece's debt settled, the Corporation ploughed on, gamely striving to work itself out of a job. In 1987 it had something of a triumph when it came to terms with China. From the days before the People's Republic, there was £60 million of debt left over — all those railways, all those public works. China's rulers cleared the decks for their country's economic resurgence and its transformation into a creditor country. They settled for £23 million.