Some suggestions for topics you might like to discuss in your reading group:­

1. Lynn Knight's great-grandfather was given away when his parents emigrated to America. Were you surprised that children were abandoned like this?
2. What do you think about life in an Industrial School, as described in the memoir? Did the conditions seem harsh? What do you think about the experiences of young girls sent into domestic service from those schools?
3. Do you think the ways in which the first two adoptions took place were unusual for the time?
4. The 1926 Adoption of Children Act enabled­ ordinary families to adopt children with the sanction of the courts. How important was that, do you think?