His Austrian-born father, Robert, committed suicide in 1983 — and it was finding a cutting from the Manchester Guardian in 1938 which changed how Julian thought about his troubled and depressive dad.

The small advert asked for a “kind person” to take in and “educate” his-then 11-year-old father.

And Julian’s findings has seen him pen I Seek a Kind Person (John Murray, £20).

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