The Best Beloved took on the daunting (in my view) role of being an independent visitor to someone in care.

He was ‘given’ a Vietnamese ‘boy’, I can’t quite remember but I think he was 14. He was lucky in that he had got fostered by a lovely couple. 

The role of an independent visitor is to be an adult outside the home/fostering system to provide an outlet for the young person.

Bao, needless to say not his real name, was into fishing and the BB and he spent many a visit sitting on a cold beach with a rod and line.

The BB knew and cared nothing about fishing but he made it happen every month.

Bao’s English was not great and he spoke quietly, both a challenge to conversation on a windswept beach.

But both of them carried on.

It is the right of the young person to end the relationship at any time they want and the BB expected that to happen – but it didn’t.

When he reached 18 he was allowed to visit our home.

I was, as you might imagine, slightly apprehensive about this.

I know nothing much about Vietnamese food but I was providing lunch.

I did a risotto – and we were off.

Bao loved risotto, he was really into cooking and food of all sorts.

His English was just great, he wanted to go and collect some wild garlic from the woods near us.

For a small young man, he surprisingly ate most of the risotto whilst we discussed food. The BB just had to sit there and let us get on with it – after all this is a man who can do a mean scramble egg and little else.

Since then, we invite him about three or four times a year.

He tells us how he moved out of foster care (but is still part of their extended foster and ‘natural’ family) to live with a Vietnamese couple and babysit their young child, does nails – not entirely surprisingly – enjoys that, but has also passed his driving  test so he drives himself across Sussex to see us, passed his ‘British test’ tried a course in car maintenance but hated it.

I try to encourage him into something to do with food but he says he doesn’t want to ruin his enjoyment by the drudge of it….. I understand that, but I still think he is missing his calling.

Just last week he was coming to us and I had made a lunch the previous day so I could go into Oxfam in the morning.

I got a message from the BB to say Bao had said he would bring spring rolls.

He and they arrived – all handmade and delicious, along with a salad of all sorts of herbs he had grown, bought from Vietnamese suppliers, rice noodles and a ‘sauce’ of pineapple, fish sauce, chilli and ‘stuff.’

It was delicious and we had such a nice meal and good time with a delightful young cook, who told us about his life what he was up to, and all sorts.

His fishing hobby has turned into making elaborate aquariums with specialist plants, rocks he collects and done with some considerable artistry – and, of course, fish.

There is quite a lot of maintenance involved in all this and, apparently, having a shower timed to make sure the CO2 you are putting in is not on too long – indeed, no I had no idea either.

And no, he doesn’t want this hobby either turned into a job. ‘I will make money so I can enjoy the things I want to.’

Well done the BB and Bao, we are lucky to have him in our lives.