We knew we had to come up with a plan. I thought if we were going to commit to such a huge lie, then it had to be to everyone – to all our friends and family – and we would have to move away from the Suffolk village we’d lived in all our lives. I resigned from my job at the hospital. Doug had wanted for some time to expand his building business, so he applied for a loan, and the idea was to move from the area and start again. We began researching villages and areas in Cambridgeshire, the next county, miles away from our village, where no one would know us.

Two weeks after Hannah came to us, I went to the local pub to have a drink with friends, and broke the news that Doug and I had decided to split up. In the shocked silence I told them that I was going away for a while to stay with a friend from the hospital while I worked out what to do. I knew the gossip would spread like wildfire. Later that night, I took Hannah, drove to a town near the Cambridgeshire village we’d chosen to move to, and stayed in a hotel while I looked for a house to rent. Doug gave notice to our landlord and a month later, came and joined us.

My parents had moved to the Lake District after I had married Doug, so the fabrications we had to weave, though difficult, were not impossible. When I announced my ‘pregnancy’ to them I said that, because of my previous miscarriages, we’d waited four months before telling them. Later we said that as the baby had arrived a month early she’d had to spend several weeks in the hospital’s neo-natal intensive care unit – a place where only the child’s parents are allowed to visit. Finally, citing problems with the move and so on, we were able to put off their first visit for a further couple of months. Hannah was a naturally very small baby, so when my parents did eventually get to meet their grandchild they didn’t guess that she was in fact far older than we said. It was very difficult – I hated lying to them, but what else could I do? Doug’s own mother had died some years earlier and his father, who lived in Devon, was not the type to be much interested in newborns, so that at least was easier.

As far as local friends were concerned I told them that Doug and I had got back together after our split when we’d found out I was pregnant, and we were now living happily together in Cambridgeshire. Yes, I hurt some feelings, burnt some bridges, but, well, it was a small price to pay.