Ever since that phone call a couple of months after Marie had got married, our relationship had once again blossomed and continued grow.

At this time she was living in East Grinstead, which is some 35 miles south of Windsor close to Gatwick airport, so when I came 'down South' to work I would drive down and spend a little time with her at any opportunity.

I always remember being very uncomfortable visiting her at her marital home.  I never wanted to spend any time in there and would always be on edge, even walking up the driveway.

Consequently we would go and drive to other towns in the area if we had time, or simply just go into a coffee shop and chat for as long as I was able to stay.

So despite Marie being newly married it seemed that we just picked up from where we left off, although the opportunities to meet were no where near as often as before, but the phone chats continued and despite the physical distance and the technicality of a marriage, I still felt as close to Marie as I ever did.

Things were about to change though.  I had one of my usual phone calls at work from Marie, it must have been during February or March.  There are a number of elements of detail which I forget with the passing of time, but what I remember very clearly was Marie telling me that she was pregnant.

My immediate reaction was one of devastation.  Just before Marie was married, but whilst she was still working at ICL, I remember very clearly saying to her to be sure that she didn't get pregnant.

It was my only hope that, should the marriage not work out, there would be no complications to get in the way of a quick and clean break from this person she was going to marry - very much in the same way that my childless marriage had allowed me to walk away relatively easily.  Being told that she was pregnant brought these words back to me and immediately filled me with a feeling that our relationship was really at an end.

However there were questions which caused both Marie and me some concern.

I remember most clearly, as part of our general chatting, Marie saying that she and her husband had not been intimate with each other very frequently.  A slightly unusual situation for a newly married couple.

Calculating just how far into a pregnancy someone is, is not an exact science.  However to be within a week or so would not generally be difficult.  This would put the time of conception around a week or so either side of the time that she visited me in Manchester for my birthday.

What was clouding the issue was that Marie said she had been intimate with her husband during that period and that there was at least an equal possibility of the pregnancy being caused by him.

We discussed at length the possibilities.  For a number of reasons, which seemed compelling and right at the time, we decided that the likelihood was that the pregnancy was caused by her husband and that was to be the end of the matter.

It was a terribly difficult few days, with a number of very long phone calls, but the decision had been taken and agreed

It's very easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to look back at decisions which one takes throughout ones life and wonder how on earth such a course of action could be taken.  I'm not just talking about this decision but others as well.  What seems an insurmountable problem at the time with difficult, uncomfortable or distasteful implications can often, with the passage of time, gain a clarity and simplicity which makes one wonder how on earth one came to follow a particular course of action through.

I have often wondered 'what if' where you are concerned, but sadly it's now too late to rectify the decisions made in those first few months after you were conceived.

There would be times during your first few years, in ignorance of the true facts, where I wished that you were my daughter.  It could be argued that having those feelings should have encouraged me to have been more pro-active in fully developing my relationship with Marie and adopting you as my own.

How ironic that a few years later the truth would turn the tables on me completely and the circumstances which then prevailed would take the matter out of my hands altogether.