I flew home to tell my daughter off for wasting the money I’d been sending for five years. I found her at school eating half a bread roll — and then the counsellor told me she’d been registered as a low-income student since the year I left.

Then I sat in my hire car in that car park and put the photocopies on the passenger seat and my bank statements on my knee, and I went through both of them at the same time for about two hours.

Somebody in that office had rung my mother by then. I found that out later and I do not hold it against them.

She came into that building at about half past two and found me still there, in the reception area, with the folder open in my hands.

And she crossed that room and got hold of my arm in front of about sixteen people and said it loud enough for every one of them:

You left. Don’t stand in a school and act like a father.

Nobody moved. A woman behind the desk put a phone down without hanging it up properly.

She did not let go. She leaned in and said: