The Way We Never Were - Moving On

Another extract from the book-to-be, from the chapter Moving On
While I was at university the then Labour government set out to change the law to allow relatives to trace. At the time I was infuriated. My opinion then was that I was not some piece of property to be collected at a time of someone else’s choosing. I felt it was unfair for anyone to be able to “Trace” me, even if it were done through a third party, as it seemed a huge and potentially dangerous invasion of privacy. I wrote a letter to Margaret Hodge, the Children’s Minister, setting out my concerns, but she never wrote back. A letter from my own MP explained, rather patronisingly, that everything would of course be dealt with sensitively through a third party, but even that seemed to me to be too much – as I discovered when Lee eventually found me, once that door has been opened, it’s almost impossible to say no. If you never want to be “found”, you shouldn’t be placed in a position where you have to say “No”. In my letter to Mrs Hodge I proposed a different system whereby both the birth relative (mother or father or sibling) could lodge a letter with the agency responsible saying they’d be happy for contact and specifying whether they wanted this to be in person or just by letter et cetera. If the adopted person did the same, then the intermediary could be in touch to explain how this could actually happen. Such a system would also have perhaps meant my own decision not to trace might have been different: I did think about doing so once, but my mum rightly warned that I didn’t know what position my birth mother was in: if she had kids of her own, for example, I could potentially cause tremendous damage by turning up out of the blue, however delicately this was done.

For much of my life, being adopted has been an interesting quirk rather than something that has caused me distress or discomfort. But I’ve always wondered, on and off, about the circumstances of my adoption, worrying that it might have been the result of something terrible – for example, that my mother was raped – or that my mother might not have had a choice in the matter. The Magdalene Sisters came out while I was at university and was a stunning film that had a big impact on me due to my Catholic upbringing, even though I wasn’t Irish and knew that I wouldn’t have come from such cruel beginnings. At 22 I wrote a play called Ducklings, where I wanted to give a sympathetic portrayal of the birth mother. I left adoptive parents out of it altogether, not wanting to upset or implicate my own in any way, and focussed on the (admittedly rather irritating) adopted main character and the lack of relationship she had when she was cajoled into tracing her mother mother. Much of what you read or watch about reunions between long-lost family members is heavy on dramatic impact and told from one extreme or the other: the heart-wrenching first meeting where the protagonists become inseparable, the tearful bear hugs surrounded by dramatic scenery (these people never just meet up in the pub) or the exact opposite, where they find themselves hating one another. I wanted Ducklings to look at the possibility of a third option: that Maria, the mother, was, for want of a better phrase, not all that bothered. Based on the change in law, rather than either the mother or daughter triggering the reunion it is an aunty that first writes to her adopted niece, introducing herself. The daughter then takes it upon herself to go in search of her mother. It was meant to be funny, and succeeded in some ways, I think – it was performed in the studio at the Hampstead Theatre, though nothing ever came of it after that. Interestingly, years later, my lack of reunion with my birth mother and the fact that it was a relative I didn’t know existed that traced me through their own detective work showed it to have been not all that inaccurate.

Extract from “Ducklings”
SUSIE: What did you name me?
MARIA: You didn’t have a name.
SUSIE: Why not?
MARIA: I didn’t even know what sex you were!
SUSIE: But you must’ve thought about it, though? I’ve thought about what names I’d call my children loads of times.
MARIA: And what did you come up with?
SUSIE: I keep changing my mind. I like Paul, for boys. And Maisie for girls.
MARIA: Sounds like a breakfast cereal.
(Pause)
SUSIE: So… you didn’t even think about it?
MARIA: No. You were taken away immediately. Your new parents wanted their own baby, not somebody else’s. (Pause, explaining:) It’s like ducklings. You take a duckling away from its mum and he’s buggered. She’ll not take him back because she doesn’t recognise him any more, but no other duck wants him because he’s not theirs. But if his mum dies, it’s a different story altogether. Another duck’ll take it under her wing and raise him like one of her own. I think it’s ducks do that, but anyway, you see what I mean.
SUSIE: So why did you give me up?
MARIA: You don’t mess about, you, do you?
SUSIE: No, but I was… I mean…
MARIA: What did your parents tell you about why?
SUSIE: Nothing. They said they didn’t know. They swore they didn’t get told anything!
MARIA: Well then they probably didn’t.
SUSIE: Was I a mistake?

The Way We Never Were: Afterword

The closing chapter to the book I'm writing with my brother:

"Adoption is constantly in the news, often for all the wrong reasons: because it went wrong; because it only happened because of some huge miscarriage of justice; because the process is outdated and Kafka-esque. In the last few years the Conservative government has made it a priority to try to make the adoption system smoother, easier and quicker. I am most certainly not a Conservative and have never voted for them, but I have been hugely impressed in particular with Tim Loughton’s efforts in this area.

I still to this day describe myself as a poster child for adoption, and am so deeply and desperately grateful for the opportunities and experiences it gave me. I am closer to my parents than almost anyone I know is to theirs. My dad is and will always be my greatest role model, and if I am ever half the person he is I know I will have succeeded. To me he epitomises all that is good about human nature – the love, wisdom, humour and compassion that makes up a truly great man. I am the product of a grand experiment of nature versus nurture, whereby nurture has triumphed. Although there are inevitably things that are sad about the whole state of affairs, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Controversially, I don’t agree with “letterbox adoptions”, where children keep in touch with their “real” parents. My real parents are the two people that raised me and still to this day love me and care for me, and letterbox adoptions strike me simply as glorified fostering without the pay. I also – again, contentiously – disagree with constant attempts to force children to live with parents who are not in a position to look after them. Of course we don’t want to return to the days when children are whipped away from parents because of our own prejudices, but at the same time I don’t see that it’s in the interests of the child to go backwards and forwards, from foster home to foster home, until eventually the system admits defeat – those are the children that then find themselves permanently in care because they are “unadoptable” or, even if they are adopted eventually, face longer-term problems. Being adopted as a baby was wonderful because it didn’t require me any special efforts to incorporate me into my new family – they are the only family I have ever known, and I have never had any doubt that that was where I belonged.

Recently I watched a programme called “Finding Mum and Dad”, which almost broke my heart. It showed older children going to “adoption parties”, which seemed to me like speed dating for unwanted children, with prospective parents effectively looking around going “ooh, that one’s nice”. In it a seven-year-old boy showed off his little sister’s old room at his foster parents’ house. “Where is she now?” the interviewer asked, to which the boy replied seriously, “She’s been adopted.”

The programme made me realise that, although I look back with regret on a childhood we never had together, and for which we can never quite make up, Lee and I were incredibly lucky to end up in loving, caring, nurturing homes – me through adoption and he through long-term fostering. Beryl Linehan was truly our guardian angel, first arranging my adoption and then scooping up Lee and shaping him into the lovely man he is today while, across the English Channel, my parents did the did the same with me.

And now, finally, we have each other too.

Border Crossings

The barman in the Bethlehem Hotel looked delighted to see us and positively beamed when we agreed to try the only local brew,Taybeh. The bar and indeed the rest of the hotel – a building several storeys high but now rarely fully occupied – had probably seen better days.

Tourism to Bethlehem has dropped significantly since the erection of a separation wall in 2002, with visitors opting to be bussed in to its famous sites by tour companies from the swanky hotels of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem rather than staying within the city itself. Now Bethlehem, busy around the key attractions of the Church of the Nativity and the Shepherds’ Fields during the day, is eerily quiet at night. Walking into town one evening we passed several shops, owners sitting hopefully in doorways and excited at the prospect of passing trade. One leapt to his feet, calling:

“You are English? You want beer?”

When we didn’t respond he tried, bafflingly, “Irish? You want the Virgin Mary?”

We continued into town, the 25-foot wall casting its looming, oppressive shadow at every turn. The wall, explained the waiter at Afteem, a wonderful, friendly restaurant hidden beneath an otherwise silent Manger Square, has devastated the town. It has separated people from their families and their livelihoods in the form of olive groves which ended up on the wrong side of the wall. Queues at checkpoints are often long and remain stationary for hours, affecting business and humiliating Palestinians who brave them daily just to make a living. Unemployment in Bethlehem, he said, was over 60%.

“And yet there is wit and vibrancy everywhere: walking home we passed a cafe cheekily called “Stars and Bucks”, complete with an almost-familiar logo; on the ever-present wall someone has wryly daubed “Can we have our ball back?”

Immobile on a bus in one of those very queues leaving the city early next morning I brooded on the injustice of it all. As I got angrier a young, armed soldier who must have thought I was looking at him caught my eye. He smiled. I smiled back. As we eventually pulled away he gave me a shy wave. Of all my encounters in Bethlehem this touched me the most: this friendly youth, probably on his military service, stuck patrolling a checkpoint in the dusty heat, showing a glimmer of humanity in the midst of a terrible situation that was not of his making.