Tissue is both an autobiography and a comment on the autobiographical process. The first part describes a life lived in four countries: British India, the British colony of Kenya, England and Australia, and the consequences of the end of colonialism for a child that was inadvertently part of it. It also describes a return to Kenya in 2003 to find a lost farm, and a lifelong search for a lost mother and her family in England. The second part of the book looks at some of the ideas around aut...

Maud Berridge (1845–1907) was the wife of a Master Mariner, and she travelled with him on at least five occasions (1869, 1880, 1882, 1883, 1886), sailing to Melbourne with emigrants and cargo. The first occasion was 1869 just after they were married, when Henry was Captain of the Walmer Castle, and they returned via New Zealand instead of travelling east and around Cape Horn.However, most of Henry and Maud's voyages were undertaken in the three-masted clipper Superb, sailing from G...