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As my beloved mum lay on her deathbed, she turned towards me and said, “Louise, I have ­something I need to tell you.”

The look on her face told me it was serious.

“Your dad wasn’t your biological father. He adopted you when you were three years old.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Overwhelmed, I wanted to run away. But Mum held my hand, determined to keep speaking while she still could.

“One night when I was 21, I was on my way home from work in Glasgow when I was raped by a stranger, which resulted in me becoming pregnant with you.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t told you before, I didn’t know how.

“I’ve always felt guilty about keeping it from you and I hope you can forgive me.”

The revelation floored me. I pulled away and fled the room. Struggling to breathe, I felt as though my whole world was crumbling.

But there was no time to fall apart.

After composing myself, I went back to my mum’s bedside as she took her final breaths with my sisters, Amber and Lucy, next to her. Stroking her head I said, “It’s okay, Mum.” And with that, she passed away.

I was numb with shock and grief. I looked over at Amber and she nodded at me. In that moment I ­realised she knew the awful truth too. It turned out our mum had confided in her a few years earlier, and although she wanted to tell me, mum begged her to remain quiet.

I started to cry so hard that I didn’t think I’d ever stop.

The next few days were dreadful. My sisters organised my mum’s funeral because I couldn’t cope.

In the months that followed, I ­realised I’d always wondered about my dad, who had died 10 years earlier from motor neurone disease.

I look completely different to my sisters and growing up, Dad was always slightly indifferent towards me.

I had a privileged upbringing in many ways, with everything I could want in material terms, yet I always felt separate from the rest of my family. While my mum and sisters would play silly games and laugh together, I didn’t get their humour.

My home life could be turbulent. My dad was ­physically abusive to my mum, and although he never hit me or my sisters, we witnessed him pushing and hitting our mum.

After several particularly bad rows we had to flee the house and stay with friends. But Mum always went back to him. It was sometimes a source of resentment between the two of us and I wish that she’d been strong enough to leave him. — Daily Mail