Hold On Tight: A son's memoir of maternal attachment

This memoir is about the bond between us and what we both chose to do with it. Maternal attachment, for me, was complicated. After spending my earliest years with my grandma, Mum wasn't my first mother, nor my last. But when she was my mum, it was amazing. Once I knew her face, her hair, her skin, separation was painful. There came bleak days, months and years spent as a 'looked-after-child' in Derby without her. Where was she? Who was she with? Was my mum OK? This book describes a journey from 1970s Derby, to the sunshine island of Jamaica and then back across the Atlantic Ocean to Brixton in South-West London. Maternal bonds were formed, stretched and tested to their limit. Closeness and connexion was grasped at, held on to. Mum told me to 'Hold on tight'. And I did, for as long as I possibly could.