'Remember, Remember the Fifth of November' by Maggie Seren

The sulfurous smell of fireworks always takes me back. Ruby in the bedroom next door, Marc Bolan on the stereo, me writhing on the bathroom floor, my stifled screams drowned out by the whooshing and whizzing of the rockets, my moans blending in with the oohs and aahs of the crowd in the park opposite.

Now, fifty years on, I stare at the text from my great-niece.

Didn’t you and gran grow up in this street? 

I click the link, read the headline:

ARE YOU OUT THERE, MUM? 

Fireworks foundling, Guy Church, launches appeal for birth mother to come forward.