I have long been a staunch believer in the importance of family life above all things, and I am always being reminded by my daughters of their earliest memory of me, banging my fist on the table, proclaiming that family is the most important thing in the world.

Although I cannot in any way claim to have been the best mother in the world, I do from time to time sit back and gloat when I see my five girls together. Of course they have their ups and downs and squabble over clothes and make-up and have even been known to have full on catfights over who gets to use the car. However, they clearly adore each other and that is my single proudest achievement. Seeing them run and jump into each other’s arms after a time of separation or just strolling around arm in arm leaves me with a deep sense of pride.

As a young mother I felt completely and contentedly fulfilled as the babies arrived in rapid succession, and there was little time for thoughts beyond the next feed or nappy change. Like most new parents, I felt special and blessed to be producing bouncing babes, and my own established family suddenly took second place to the demands of my daughters.

Polly with her daughters, clockwise from top left, Phoebe, Cressida, Ottilie, Augusta and Minna

Then, after my mother died, as the eldest daughter of seven siblings, I took on the
natural role of chief family events coordinator, holding the bulk of family celebrations and parties at our home. Before my brothers and sisters started on their ever-increasing families, I would try to gather everybody at my house at Christmas, no mean feat with, to date, 20 children between the seven of us. As most women inherently understand, it is one of our many roles in life to buy and send all birthday and Christmas presents and generally be the Uhu that holds families together.
I have found that the older you get, however, the more interested you become in your own family history, where you come from and who made you what you are today. This is even more true after you have children. From the moment they are born, friends and family members peer into the cot and scrutinise the infant for telltale inherited features, before duly declaring how like you or your husband they are, or haven’t they got their Uncle John’s nose or their Auntie Flora’s eyes. Only as the girls became more independent did the bigger picture and details of family history become so important to me.

There is something very comforting and flattering in being told that you have passed on a family resemblance. Show me a grandmother who isn’t tickled pink when told her son or daughter’s offspring resembles her in even the tiniest way. The sense of belonging, whether welcome or not, is strengthened by shared familial features, talents and personality traits.

Professional parents are always mad keen to see if their children have inherited any of their talents. Footballers start kicking a ball to their baby before they can even crawl. Dancers waste no time in enrolling their toddler into ballet school, and artists examine their offspring’s first potato printing and colouring-in books to see if they have passed on any of their flair.

One of the biggest assets my mother passed on to me was the ability to get pregnant at the merest mention of bedtime, and I wonder if I’ve passed that talent on to my girls, but since they’re all still unbetrothed, I’d rather they didn’t put it to the test just yet.
Television programmes such as Who Do You Think You Are? and websites such as Genes Reunited are testimony to the fact that we are, as a nation, all becoming far more interested in discovering our roots and tracking down our long-lost ancestors, a pastime previously reserved as a hobby for the retired.

Being the alleged daughter of a brilliant engineer, it did always strike me as odd that I struggle to operate anything remotely mechanical, and I did start to question why I had failed to inherit a single iota of the engineering skills with which my siblings are blessed (they can all fashion cars out of matchsticks). Even now I am flummoxed by the video recorder, and setting our digital alarm clock is beyond me.
After spending years staring at myself in the mirror and then at photographs of the two possible candidates for the role of my father, I nervously took the plunge to put a stop to all the endless rumours that had been circulating round me for years. I sought to discover once and for all my true parentage. It was a frightening decision but one I felt I had to make.

Finding out at the age of 45 that the man I had idolised and put on a pedestal higher than Nelson’s Column since I was a small child was not in fact my father was a hard burden to bear. Moving the parental goalposts in adulthood requires a substantial adjustment if one is to stay in the game and play by the rules. It did, however, clarify where to send Father’s Day cards in future.

Although we may like to think of our own generation as being wild and wonderful, in comparison to what our parents got up to in the swinging 60s we are mere innocents caught up in the aftermath of the postwar free-love era.

Polly: 'Rather than being twisted with guilt at uncovering a secret I should have been told long ago, I can carry on being little old me'

Every girl needs to have a father figure in her life, and some even have to marry to get one. Seeking a father’s approval is very high on the agenda of every little girl, from showing off the first gap in her teeth to meeting potential suitors. Mothers are merely there to help smooth the path through life for them, supplying nutritious food, matching socks and a steady stream of clean and pressed clothes. It is a father’s permission the suitors seek when asking for his daughter’s hand in marriage and he will be the one to proudly lead her down the aisle, and give her away to a worthy replacement.
Because my parents divorced when I was young, unlike my daughters, I have no memories to savour of being thrown high into the air, pushed on swings or riding on the handlebars of the bike of a doting father. But you don’t miss what you never had. Besides, it’s too late now to squeeze myself into a Wonder Woman costume and wave banners from tall public buildings in protest, although it is sorely tempting, as I would score very high in the how-best-to-embarrass-your-children stakes.

Rather than being twisted with guilt and shame at what I’ve done in uncovering a secret that I should have been told long ago, I can just carry on being little old me, the person I am today. I can nestle back into my role as a modern-day Mrs Bennet and feel blessed to have married the most adoring father our brood of daughters could wish for, and get on with the job in hand: that of marrying off my girls to men I deem would make ground-worshipping fathers – and if they are blessed with a hefty bank balance, so much the better.

Despite my recent discovery, I still believe in the sanctity of family life even if in my own case it has proved to be a tad more complicated than I had previously thought. These days I’m unashamedly drawn to watching The Jeremy Kyle Show, where desperately anxious individuals seek to learn their true parentage. Sorting out the laundry with one eye on the TV screen, I am only grateful that I didn’t have to resort to swelling the ratings of daytime TV by airing my own dirty laundry in such a judgmental public arena. Only time will tell if I get the thumbs-up or thumbs-down and be thrown as illegitimate fodder to the lions.