Trying to be as positive as he could about it, he said to me, 'I have to tell you, Kate – it was a Harrods bag'.

[There is an odd grammar in that sentence, which seems wrong, but is actually precise.] Close siblings were less common, ... It seemed.

Historians say this will lead to civil conflict. It doesn't lead to girls being treasured. It leads to them being traded as commodities and stolen.

Having had loving people who brought me up, and then I find another set of people. That really is a double blessing.

[Maybe she simply cared in a self-protective way.] Doing something on impulse, ... well, it can work, but there are a lot of examples that say, 'Better to leave well alone and do what you can as a reporter.' You do get into situations where you think, 'What should I do? Shouldn't I intervene? Shouldn't I do something?' I think if you get to that point you have to make a decision. I've said to people, if you feel it's wrong just being a reporter and you can't do enough, well it's time to become an aid worker and train to be someone who really knows what to do. No good standing around snapping a notebook.

[The trains were never forgotten, but the extent of their influence only came to light with the arrival of the internet and the subsequent flowering of genealogical research. This obsession with roots will be felt especially keenly by foundlings, who often have no way of exploring their family histories.] I notice that genealogical sites now have warnings on them saying people should be ready for little surprises, ... They're not all going to find themselves descended from King Henry VIII or Richard Cur de Lion or Wellington. This is rather strange because it was pretty taken for granted a few generations ago that families had all kinds of little moments where things had gone not according to the book. It was just one of those things. You tried to accommodate it. There was no social welfare. You just had to sort it out within villages, the families, the parish. Children went to the workhouse, but people knew about it. Nowadays, there's a kind of surprise that these cases were so commonplace.