When I first created this web site, all I knew was that you had left for America almost two years previously.  I was under the impression that you would probably be there for about three years, but I really had no idea if you were still there or if you'd come back.

It was a little frustrating not knowing where you were, but I was content in my belief that eventually things would work out and I just had to be very patient and let things develop of their own accord and at their own pace.

As well as that, I was very aware that your world was probably very stable, with you as the oldest child of a happy family unit.  Being in America presented a great opportunity to develop that family unit, without any complications or references to those early years in the UK and, to be honest, if I had that same opportunity I would probably do the same thing.

The hard truth is that, although you are my biological daughter, I have no legal entitlement to see you.  So my stance has always been that my needs will always be secondary to anything else, and I should allow your life to develop within your family environment with as few complications as possible.  I remember most clearly saying to Marie that the only person who should come out of this unscathed is you, and I still believe that to be the case.  Therefore for me to suddenly appear on the scene, just to satisfy my desire to see you would be rather selfish and could cause untold complications to, what I hope is, your happy family.  I remain confident however that when the time is right, you will find me and I look forward to that time.

So creating this site was for me the best way to be found, given that I had moved away from the last address that your Mum knew.  And found I was, but not to my knowledge by you.

If a web site is to be effective, it has to be 'known' to the search engines, so to help the search engines find me I indulged in a few well known procedures to try to move it up their list.  Well,  after a few months it turned out that this web site came out in the first three whenever my name was put into Google or Yahoo !  You can't imagine how happy I was when this happened.  There are quite a few Graham Turner's around, some of whom are quite famous as artists, journalists or football managers so for me to be positioned above their site's was just the best news and gave me even more confidence that you would be able to find me easily.  I know that you know my name and I knew that at some stage of your teenage years you would become 'internet wise'.  I don't know if you're aware of this, but as well as having a website which is www.grahamt.com (unfortunately grahamturner.com had already been snapped up by one of those more famous GT's) I have also bought a site address which is yourname.com (www.firstnamesecondname.com) and it points directly at my site.  So given all of this I remain confident that sooner or later I'll hear from you.

So, being naturally curious, I would use the search engines to try to find you.  Not to make contact with you (for all of the reasons I explained above) but just to know which country you were in and something of the way your life was developing.  It was a pretty safe bet that with the genetics of your mum and me you would be quite good at sports, so I was sure that at some stage your name would appear on the results or reports of some school or club event.

I can't tell you the number of times and the various combinations of words and names I would enter into numerous search engines to try to find anything about you.  I can tell you there are LOADS of combinations and I became quite adept at searching techniques.  I would use combinations of your name, your name together with your dad's and your mum's (I suppose you know there's an NHL coach with the same name as your dad !) but nothing ever came back.

I would have a search maybe once a week, sometimes less, but I guess on average over the last three years I would probably have a little search about once every couple of weeks.  I never let myself get too hung up about anything, because at the end of the day, it's not about me finding you, it's about you finding me.

As soon as I received that letter from your mum, just after you went to America, I decided then that I was playing a long game, which meant that I would make it as easy as I can for you to find me and then wait for you to get in touch.  So, searching for you was simply to satisfy my curiosity and to try to follow something of your life, without interfering in it.