She was not born to the couple that was raising her.ĬUMMING: No, and this is something she didn't learn until she was 13. And without giving too much away, we learn early on in the book that this was another family secret - that your mother had been adopted. KELLY: Her parents knew exactly who kidnapped her, and they knew why. Sometimes we do remember things from the first three years of our life, and the only memory she had ever was the scent of strawberry jam. And as you say, she turns up and has no memory. Then there's a great search, and you can - it's a sort of old-fashioned scene of a constable cycling along policemen on his bicycle by night, trying to find the child. The police report suggests probably - maybe a couple of minutes. And suddenly, she's gone - I mean, really gone in an instant. They're quite close to the home she was living in. And the sun is coming down, and my little, tiny mother is playing on her own on the beach with a spade.

It's a beach, very long and flat, on an autumn afternoon in 1929. And she didn't even learn of it until she was well into middle age. It was not central to your mother's life. KELLY: Start with the kidnapping, which is absolutely central to the book you've written. That daughter is Laura Cumming, and she's the author of 'Five Days Gone.' She joins me now from London.

She had a daughter of her own who became curious about family secrets kept from both her and her mother for decades. The little girl's name was - well, that's complicated, too. Five anguished days of searching ensue, and then she turns up in a neighboring village perfectly fine, wearing a red dress instead of the blue one she'd had on when she disappeared. In 1929 - so 90 years ago - a little girl was kidnapped, snatched off a beach in England. Here is the mystery around which a new memoir spins.

On chapel sands review