Exactly a year ago today at 3.15pm, I was on the Ferry to Larne, going home to visit my sick mother, when I received a call to say that she had passed away.

How to tell the children, who looked at me knowing the news was not good?

Birth parents never forget the children they have lost to adoption. ROB BROWN tells the moving story of his search for the son he thought he’d never meet.

I was 18 when I fathered my first child. When my girlfriend first told me that she was pregnant, I felt very happy about becoming a father.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, love?”

Story time is over, and the lights are out - but I’ve noticed my six-year-old son often uses his last waking moments to bowl me the kind of question that might stump a philosophy graduate.