We took the 11.15 ferry from Calais to Dover on 29 March 2002. The ship was called Le Renoir and we stayed on it at Dover. Christine is my best friend, she helped me, she accompanied me. Without her I wouldn’t have had the strength to do it. On the way over I tried, but I just didn’t have the strength, I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then on the way back Christine said, ‘You must do it now, throw the bottle now.’ So we went up to the bridge, but there were too many people, it was impossible, I just couldn’t do it in a crowd.

Suddenly, a few moments later, the bridge emptied of people and we were left alone. It was almost magical. The moment I had prepared for had finally arrived. The first thing I threw over was a bundle of his clothing, the clothes in which he had been killed, his accident clothes. It was so hard; I was screaming, howling, as I did it. I felt I was ripping out my heart, tearing out an essential part of myself. Then came three white lilies that I had brought. I threw them in next.

Finally I threw the bottle into the sea. It disappeared in the wake very quickly, and a sort of pinkish colour spread around the waves where I had thrown it in. Just as the colour began to fade, a group of young people came up on to the bridge, about fifteen of them, and began to sing. Christine said, ‘They are singing for your son.’ They hadn’t seen us throw the bottle, they were singing something beautiful, in English. It was as though choreographed. A magical, sublime moment.

We went back in, shaken, cold and exhausted, and got a coffee. Suddenly in front of us stood another group of young people, wearing T-shirts with numbers on their backs. It had been twenty-one years since Maurice died, it had taken me twenty-one years to come to terms with my suffering, to get to the point where I was ready to let him go. There in front of me stood a boy with a T-shirt with ‘21’ written on his back, right before my eyes, as we sat there with our coffee. Then he was joined, on either side by two other boys, T-shirt ‘1’ on one side, and T-shirt ‘3’ on the other. Together they read ‘13’; the age at which Maurice had died. Thirteen, encircling twenty-one. It was a strange, magical, moment. They stood in front of me all un knowing, as Christine and I sat there, recovering from the experience on the bridge.