She has sent two letters to her father as an olive branch. She says she loves him and does not require an apology. He does, at various points in the story, help her, such as paying for her flight home. As a child, she idolised him, and it is sad how the voyage was to destroy this. Anne Marie Morris, MP for Newton Abbot, commented:“This project is mission critical, not just for Dawlish but for the wider communities across the south west. The progress Network Rail has made is phenomenal and I’ve been incredibly impressed.”

She created a canvas cave inside a sail in which to hide and read, and imaginary fellow pupils too. It was a teacher on her correspondence course who helped her get into Oxford to study zoology. A don spotted something original in her essays. (She later told Heywood that she’d played a rare ‘wild card’ letting her in.) Not very well. I’m finding it hard to eat and I have a permanent headache.” I paused, trying to keep control. “As well as looking after my brother, I have to run my dad’s business.” The family set off from Plymouth in 1976, but did not return, as promised by her father Gordon Cook (no relation to Captain Cook), in three years. They spent more than a decade roaming the world, most of it in the South Pacific, covering 47,000 nautical miles, always moving on, always flat broke; a deeply dysfunctional unit of four. After a further recalculation of the schooner's position Gordon estimated that they would see the island ahead at about 5pm - it was some time after 6pm that they actually sighted the island through the falling snow. I started thinking again about my past when my children were old enough to ask me about it. Did Dad really sail around the world because he wanted to honour Captain Cook? Why didn’t my parents, middle class and well educated themselves, worry about their children’s education or social isolation? Why was my relationship with my mother so difficult, particularly during my teenage years, and why didn’t my father try to help, when he must have seen how miserable I was?

I really enjoyed this book: it was a well written and easy to read account of someone who had a very different childhood but managed to survive it. A few bits of the book (like the adult Suzanne going off in search of Wavewalker) were a bit tedious: factual accounts for completeness rather than part of the main story. Gordon decided to heave-to with the undamaged port side of the hull facing the oncoming waves. This was achieved but not without considerable difficulty and with the assistance of a makeshift sea anchor.

After the wind returned, we saw a passenger ship ploughing its way towards us from South America. It came so close that I could see the people crowding its balconies and rails to wave, and when it swept past I saw its name etched on the stern: Brazilla. Following his return to the UK Gordon was oblivious to the fact that he had been awarded 'The Lady Swathling Trophy'. It will be nearly 40,000 miles," said Gordon. "My wife doesn't like the idea of long voyages any more but the plan is that when I get to some of the nicer ports of call she will join me for a few weeks at a time for some local sailing."

She now has a new partner, James, in business like her and father to three teenage boys. They met via the internet a year or so ago, when she felt ready. Her children, Jonny, 21, and twins Lizzie and Peter, 19, are all at university – Cambridge and Oxford – which her husband did not get to see. ‘That is hard,’ she says.

By the time we reached the other end of the pristine terminal, we were laughing and almost crying over my absurdly heavy bags, and I’d discovered my new friend was called Hélène and would be sharing my next flight to Hong Kong. A seven-year old girl on a seventy-foot yacht, for ten years, over fifty thousand miles of sailing. Wavewalker is the incredible true story of how the adventure of a lifetime became one child’s worst nightmare – and how her determination to educate herself enabled her to escape. It has been great to see the interest of the local community in our project – particularly the presence of the Wavewalker – which has ensured we’ve managed to continue with the piling at the sea wall despite some of the stormy weather we’ve recently experienced.”The first brief break in the cloud cover for over a week enabled Gordon to snatch a single sextant sun sight with Mary holding him upright against the foremast.