Good Likeness

Paul Arnott has two first memories. One is as a two-year-old having a bath in a hotel sink in Tenby; the other, a Bromley afternoon, when Mr and Mrs Arnott told Paul that 'his real Mummy and Daddy couldn't keep him' and that they had adopted him. Then, for thirty years, he barely gave his adoption a moment's thought - until the observation of the likeness between himself and his newborn son prompted a quest to find his own biographical parents.To his astonishment and delight, what he discovered was a near-complete family in Ireland - his parents had later married and had four other children - who had been lighting a candle in his name every day for thirty years.Touching on the wider social issues of the adoptive process, Paul Arnott's journey in search of his roots is also an intensely personal, highly charged exploration of childhood, and a moving and candid memoir.