Timothy Villalba is living happily with his young family in Quezon City, the Philippines, but he has a lingering regret – he never got to say thank you to the late former US President George Bush for supporting him as a child. 

Mr Villalba, 25, now has a three-year-old daughter of his own, but when he was seven he started to receive letters from the mysterious Mr G Walker, who had opted to sponsor him through the nonprofit organisation Compassion International. 

“I want to be your new pen pal. I am an old man, 77 years old, but I love kids; and though we have not met I love you already. I live in Texas – I will write you from time to time,” Mr Walker told him in his first letter in January 2002. …