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6th June 1987

My dearest daughter,

Happy fourth birthday, my darling. It’s been a year since I saw you and what a year it has been.

Seeing you this time last year has kick-started me into working harder, into ‘living up to my potential’ as my tutors at St Martin’s used to put it. I’ve been sober for one year and sixty days. I’ve been to meetings every day for the last 425 days.

And with my sobriety has come a new-found love of my work. I’ve known for years that the drink has been destroying my love of art, but I hadn’t realised how much it had destroyed my productivity. The last year has been spent in a fever of activity at my studio in Whitechapel. One day I hope to show you the studio, the place where I painted the work for my first major exhibition.

Yes, that’s right! Tonight, on your fourth birthday in lieu of the Campden Hill Road party, I will be exhibiting my work for the first time. The paintings are already at the gallery and I’m sitting here in an almost empty studio feeling rather nervous I must admit. I expect this is the artist’s equivalent of stage fright. I hope your mother isn’t too angry that some of her guests will be late to the party, as I know they are coming to the exhibition!

Dad is coming down from Yorkshire to see the exhibition as well. This is a man who, to my knowledge, hasn’t left Yorkshire since Mum died! Frank and I are astonished, delighted and nervous in equal measures. In an hour or so Frank will pick me up and then we’ll be off to Kings Cross to meet Dad.

I wonder if you’ll ever meet your grandfather? I do hope so. He’s quite a character under that gruff exterior, although it’s taken me a long time to figure that out. Frank and I will be sure to tell him all about you.

Happy Birthday, Princess. Wish me luck!

Your Father