At 69, I sold my house to travel around the world despite my children’s protests — in Australia, a man invited me to his home for coffee, but when I walked into his living room, I froze.

His house was ordinary and warm, with photographs all down the hall.

"I'll put the kettle on. Make yourself at home."

So I went into the front room.

And I stopped.

My hands started going.

Because above that man's fireplace there was something I had seen before, and it had absolutely no business being in Australia.

What was over the fireplace.

Two things in one frame.

A photograph, about six inches by four, of a family in a garden. Six people, squinting, in front of a privet hedge. 1965 or thereabouts.

And beside it, behind the same glass, a letter. One page, handwritten, on the pale blue Basildon Bond my mother used until the day she died.

The photograph is of my family.

My mother, my father, my two brothers, my aunt Noreen — and a girl of about nine in the front with her socks down, which is me.

I have the same photograph. It is in a tin in a storage unit in Marley Bridge, eleven thousand miles away.