‘A girl at Births, Deaths and Marriages asked us if we’d considered the possibility that they had migrated. She said that where there were no records, that was the most likely explanation. But never in a million years did it occur to us that they’d sailed to Australia.’

I said, ‘Although plenty of Britons did.’

‘Plenty did,’ Ruby agreed.

I said, ‘And after hitting that brick wall, did your mum give up the search?’

‘Oh, it wouldn’t be fair to describe it as a search,’ Ruby said. ‘Mum had never been completely consumed by it, she was interested. It wasn’t like there was a gaping hole to fill, just an interest, a curiosity as to her origins. And then, of course, years later the phone call from the Australian lawyer came.’

I asked Ruby if she’d by chance been there when her mum took the call from Doug Grenfell.

‘I wasn’t there, no, and worse, I was in the car when she rang to tell me about it,’ Ruby said.

‘The phone flashed and I couldn’t answer because I was driving and Mum isn’t the type to get the hint, to be quick when I say, “I’m driving!” Mum loves to talk. And when I say she loves to talk, I mean talk and talk about the simplest things. She might call to say, “I was walking in the park this afternoon, and I swear I saw a man who looked just like old Mr Jenkins. Do you remember Mr Jenkins?” Of course I won’t be able to remember Mr Jenkins, so I’ll mumble something like, “I’m not sure, Mum,” and she’ll say, “Oh, Ruby-Tubes, you must remember, you used to play in his front garden all the time!” And then she’ll be off on a long discussion about how I loved to play in Mr Jenkins’ garden, and where the garden was in relation to our own, and so on.

‘I don’t mind, don’t get me wrong, but with two kids and working part-time, I’m busy, so I sometimes put Mum on the speaker phone and go about my business while she chats away. Other times, perhaps when I’m in the car with two kids in the back, with one of them saying, “He poked me, he hit me,” and six errands to run, my iPhone will go bring, bring, and I’ll look down and it will be Mum and I’ll think, “Let it go to message bank,” because if I pick up it will be Mum saying, “It’s just me, Ruby-Tubes! Just called for a chat!”

‘But on that particular day – the day Mum got the call from Doug Grenfell – Mum called and I was driving so I let it go to message bank and when I picked up the message, there was Mum, completely calm on her message. She simply said, “Call me when you can, Ruby, I have some news.”

‘There was something about her voice that was odd, so I called back quite quickly and I said, “Good or bad?”