My grandfather, once he was made aware of my existence, wanted nothing to do with me. He blamed his daughter, both for his wife’s broken heart and her early death, and he was probably right. He was not prepared to assume responsibility for the spawn of a criminal or drug dealer. I remained in care.

But a cousin of my mother’s, Brian, a high-flyer in the diplomatic service, home briefly on a posting from South Korea, learnt of my fate and came to see me. He told me later what a little savage I was, a screeching scarecrow of a child, all windmill arms and flying fists. I don’t imagine I was an appealing prospect for adoption, and in any case, in his job, he wasn’t in a position to consider it. But he paid for me to go to a very good boarding school. I think he felt that, if he’d been around at the time, instead of away in the Far East, he might have saved my mother from her fate.

School was a strict, no-nonsense place and I loved it. I boarded during term time but the long summer holidays were a problem. Brian only came home on alternate Christmases. I had nowhere to go.

It was another cousin, Cordelia, who saved me. Brian had contacted her, and although she had never met my mother, she’d offered to take me in. I was welcome to spend my holidays with her, in Devon.

He drove me down to Totnes and made the introductions. I was seven years old and amazed: Cordelia had hair just like mine. Not red – brown streaked with grey – but wild and curly, and she wore it in a great mass down her back, with no attempt to tame it, part it, or make it behave. I think I loved her on sight. She wore colourful skirts and dangling earrings and was unlike anyone I’d ever seen before. She looked deep into my eyes as she extended a long, bony hand to shake mine.

‘You’re an old soul,’ she told me gently. Overawed, I’d gone quiet, and she smiled. ‘You are a solemn little thing. When is your birthday?’ I managed to tell her and she nodded wisely. ‘That accounts for it, then. You’re a Capricorn. Did you know that Capricorns are born old and get younger?’

‘Still into the mumbo-jumbo, I see,’ Brian muttered.

Cordelia smiled. ‘If you mean astrology, Brian,’ she responded, entirely without rancour, ‘the answer’s yes.’