I said yes, and off I went - I didn't really pay much attention, I just thought this was a way of express-ing friendship.Some five or six years later, myself and members of my molecular family had the opportunity of going back to Nepal, so we decided to go and visit Khadka. When we got there we were told he had died, and the son had moved to another village, Bhaktapur. I thought he was going to touch me for money, which I would have given gladly. But he asked for a favour: he wanted a photo of me and he asked me if I'd take care of his son if he died. From his early teens he worked to support his mother - until meeting Richard Morley, whom he now refers to as his father RICHARD MORLEY: In 1984 I went to Nepal to research tribal groups: I wanted to go to the most remote part of the planet to find people not influenced by outside society.

One day I walked too far, too fast, too high, and got a collapsed lung I was taken to a village coughing up blood. An ex-policeman called Mr Khadka said he'd go and get help; I later learnt that he'd covered six days distance in three, even though he himself was not well. After I recovered, I went to thank him, and he told me how ill he was. Jayaram "Jay" Khadka was born, he thinks, 20 years ago in a village south of Kathmandu. Richard Morley, 43, millionaire entrepreneur and social experimenter, was born in London and spent periods as a naval officer, actor and producer. In 1982 he founded his "molecular family", currently eight members who live in a castle in the Forest of Dean. In 1990 he brought to England Jayaram Khadka, son of a man who had saved his life in Nepal; after a long, much-publicised fight with the previous government, Morley has just won residential status for him. At least she divulged what they contained: fruit cake.! Olympia Fine Art and Antiques Fair, 5 to 15 June (0171 370 8188) Baldwin's (0171 930 6879) Joseph Falcone, the Art of Swatch (0171-589 1200)..

It contained individually packaged parcels that, being a tidy sort, she burned. "Considering what happened to those poor devils", says Mr Millett, "it's a pretty gruesome package."Just as sad is the Crimean War package that was discovered in the same attic by a grand-mother of the family 21 years ago. The army officers in the Irish family were charged to deliver it to soldiers at the Somme. But, as the war progressed, most of the soldiers who were meant to receive bullet pencils had been shot. Mr Millett values the two stray ones, with contents, at pounds 100 each.

Which makes his pounds 4,250 sound like a bargain, whether smokers' or non-smokers'. "I'd be quite happy for somebody to buy the package, open it, and re-market the boxes for double", he says, "but I'm still not going to open it myself".The saddest thing is that the package survives at all. The rest were given as presents, having been discovered 50 years ago by the Anglo-Irish military family that has lived in the house for 200 years.Such tins, usually empty, sell for between pounds 20 and pounds 60, depending on condition. In any case, he thinks the tobacco would have been added at the front.The two boxes from the twin package are in remarkably bright condition, having been hidden away for all these years. Non-smokers' contained a packet of acid tablets, a khaki writing case with stationery - and a bullet pencil.Mr Millett has rattled the package, known to contain 72 tins in 12 cardboard cartons, but cannot make out whether or not it contains 4lb of pipe tobacco. Appar-ently good news: non-smokers were a minority in those days, so non-smokers' boxes should be scarce and valuable.