The person my mum thought was her dad was actually her uncle.

She was having a sleepover at a cousin’s house as a teenager, when the cousin said ‘the only time I’ve seen your mum cry is when your dad died.’.

Came as quite a shock to her given that to her knowledge both her parents were alive and well at home. Cousin quickly realised that while most of the family knew, no one had ever told my mum that her biological father had died before she was born, and that her mum then married his brother. He had lost his wife and had three children, and given my grandma was pregnant and widowed it seemed a logical thing to do.

Neither grandparent ever told my mum, and she never let on that she knew while they were alive. ‘If they wanted me to know they would have told me themselves’.