As I write in my column today, Ms Agllias, a lecturer in social work at Newcastle University, is researching family estrangements as her PhD thesis and hoping parents estranged from a child (and over the age of 65) will phone her on 4921 7035. She has noticed in statistics from research into other issues that one in 40 people are estranged from a family member; statistics in one study suggest that 7 per cent of the population don't have contact with a parent.

There are many reasons for this separation. Divorce is a common one, and arguments over deceased estates another. Betrayal is a claim often made by one of the estranged, and Ms Agllias has found that often one of the estranged people has no idea of the reason. For some, she says, estrangement can be a relief, a respite from conflict.

I have known an estrangement that split a family down the middle, a mother, son and daughter on one side and the father and a son on the other. It was very sad, and so far as I could see based on nothing of any consequence, yet both parents died estranged from one or two of their children. It must have blighted their lives, and they were good and intelligent people.

Deathbed reconciliations are too late, but what can be done? Could government fund a scheme in which, at the request of an estranged family member, a social worker invited the other family member to mediation? Hopefully Ms Agllias's research will make the possibilities clear.

Tell us about your experience of estrangement, your own or observed.