When Henrietta finds herself excluded from seeing her grandchildren, she decides to write to them to explain their Afro-Caribbean origins in slavery. She tells the story of her childhood in Bermuda, of marrying a British soldier, bringing up six children in Gibraltar and moving to England on her husband's retirement from the army. Writing the letters reveals unexpected and challenging truths about herself and her family, which give her food for reflection. Do her grandchildren ever receive the letters? And if so, how true a picture of their grandmother and family do they paint?