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.

And the letter next to it is in my handwriting.

Who Alec is.

He came to Australia in 1963, when he was nine years old, on a scheme, out of a home in the north of England.

There were a lot of them. He does not make a speech about it and I am not going to make one for him.

He went to a place called Carrow Downs, outside Winnamurra, which was a farm school, and he was there until he was fifteen.

And in the November of 1963, a woman in Marley Bridge called Edith Partridge put her name down through her church to write to a boy.

That was my mother.

She wrote to Alec Hartnoll every month for eleven years. She sent parcels — socks, a harmonica, humbugs, a book at Christmas. Twice a year she sent a postal order, which I now know she took out of the housekeeping and did not tell my father about for three years.