Alongside our brother, we started to build a picture of the island together. Gathering research and piecing together memories and photographs, an extraordinary place emerged. There were resourceful relatives – people who had been exiled from Africa, America and Europe – who had built a life in isolation, yet somehow fashioned a warm community and a sense of unique belonging in a place that didn’t feel like anywhere else on earth.

The people I got to know from St Helena were brilliant storytellers. My nan, who travelled to the UK while working and separated from her young children, was constantly describing funny characters and situations on and off the island. My great-grandmother travelled solo across South Africa and made her way to UK, raising children and building businesses. My paternal great-grandmother grew produce on the family farm and brought up nine children single-handedly when her husband died young. As memories and stories were shared, I could sense my sisters’ hearts soar – in tandem with my own – with their new sense of identity.

I started reading books about St Helena and finding film, vintage postcards, maps and pictures. I shared them not only with my sisters but also with my grandfather. “Old photo you got here, girl. Late 18th century,” he would say as he studied one. Grandad would sometimes walk me down the streets of the main city, Jamestown, using Google Earth on his iPad. I loved looking at the names of the places: Shy Lane, Egg Island, Old Joan Point. Who was old Joan? I loved reading about its tiny library – the oldest in the southern hemisphere, apparently – and wondered which books my ancestors had borrowed. I started embracing the St Helena community, too, tasting new food, meeting family and immersing myself in a culture which for so long I felt I wasn’t a part of.

“At 42, I discovered I had 3 quadracial sisters – here’s what it taught me about my own identity”