So easily this autobiography could have been yet another 'poor me' story. It is far from it. With indomitable spirit, humour and a keen eye and ear for events and attitudes, Ruth Jones opens up a world so very different from that which most of us have enjoyed. Ruth, a first-time writer, spent many of her eighty years planning that one day she would write her life story. It has so many twists, turns and coincidences that it could qualify as a detective novel. But it is true. She was born 'the wrong side of the blanket' in 1928, and placed in a children's home at the age of ten days. With her came a note: 'her name is Ruth.' A series of serendipitous happenings, together with a deep awareness of what it means if you 'don't belong to anybody', moved her to begin collecting random and improbable clues that would one day lead her across the world to find her birth family. An Improper Daughter is the result of nearly seventy years of sleuthing in England and in New Zealand.