I came across Frances Hodgson Burnett’s My Robin (1912) while doing research for a book I was writing about my grandfather. I had discovered, on reading through my father’s papers, that the family tales of connections to Frances and The Secret Garden were true. (Perhaps I’m still not convinced that Frances presented a pram with her initials emblazoned on it at the birth of my Aunt Gert, and yet it is consistent with her character.) My grandfather was gardener to Frances at Maytham Hall in Kent, and he was the inspiration for the book’s more interestingly named character, Ben Weatherstaff.