Who was her father and what formed him? Those were the questions the author wished to answer.

He died in early middle age in 1962, more than half a century ago. There was nobody alive who could help.

She had to use other sources of information.

This is not just the story of a man who fought in the Second World War before starting a family and pursuing a career in peace-time, but equally the process of finding answers that may inspire others to take a similar path.

Digging up family history is fascinating.

Promising information sometimes leads nowhere, whilst other facts unearth the unexpected and start you on a journey of learning and revelation.

Sue Wincent-Dodd was born in Cheshire in 1948 and brought up in Shrewsbury.

After spending time in Norway and Sweden, She did a degree in Scandinavian Studies in Newcastle upon Tyne.

She taught English as a Foreign Language in London, Paris, Germany and in Sweden.

Sue has lived in Sweden since 1975. In the early 1980s she retrained as a librarian and later taught Librarian and Information Science at Uppsala University.

She has a family with her husband, two children and four grandchildren.

My mother, who died on New Year’s Eve 2009, never knew who her father was. Her mother never married and she was a domestic servant when she gave birth to her first child - my mother’s older brother by almost two years, whilst she was a charwoman at the time my mother was born in May 1925.

After my mother’s death I resolved to see if I could find out who her father was. However, in doing so, I was mindful of the fact that, as my mother had never known a single thing about him, I was setting myself a considerable challenge - especially as her mother had once told her that he had gone away.

Perhaps, upon reflection, it was a slightly crazy thing to do - particularly as I had no sensible plan as how to proceed, and given that what subsequently transpired turned out to be so much more than I could have ever anticipated.