My Secret Sister: Jenny Lucas and Helen Edwards' Family Story (44 page)

On a search like ours, people have to be prepared for some pain along the way. There was a lot of pain in our story. A lot of rejection and opposition. As adults, we all need to reflect on the choices we make and understand the potential consequences of our actions. The decisions we make as parents can affect a child for the rest of their life. Such a decision needs to be the best one; not necessarily for the adult, but best for the child. We all have the right to know our own stories, and nobody should deprive a child of that.

Jenny and Sam adopted Josh and they told him right from the start. Jenny made a book for him all about it. It’s his book. They are planning to take him over to see his birth country. That’s a healthy approach to adoption.

For us, Jenny and me, finding each other has been very healing, cathartic. Before Jenny found me, there was something wrong in my life, something bad. I always knew it was bad, and I thought it was me, because that’s what I was always told, and I came to believe it. But it wasn’t me, and I know that now. All that poisonous influence has finally gone. I don’t mean life is all chocolate boxes and fairies, but it is positive now, and so am I.

The joy of Jenny and me is in the fact that we have found each other, that we wanted to be found. It might be late, but it’s not too late. We’re like kids together, catching up on lost time, and it’s a joyful feeling just having each other at last.

Jenny and I now focus on today and tomorrow, not the woes of yesterday. But there is one regret that lingers in both our hearts – the longing, the most natural longing, of a child to know her father. A longing denied us by the family’s deceptions. That regret will be with us for ever.

On the anniversary of Wilfred’s death, we made a special journey together. We found out that there is a memorial to him at the crematorium, so we went there. We found his name in gold letters in the book of remembrance, and we found his memorial plaque. We stood quietly together and cried as we thought about all the good things we had learned about him.

We left a big bouquet of spring flowers for him. We had intended to leave a card anonymously so as not to upset anyone who might see it after we’d gone. But at the last minute, I changed my mind.

‘Dammit, he’s our father – no more secrets.’

So we wrote our card and left it on show with the flowers:

Wilfred Harrison, Our Dad, with love always,

Helen and Jenny xxxx

EPILOGUE

After we had finished writing this book, we discovered a new and unexpected trail of clues, which we followed to unearth the most exciting secret of all.

Jenny

We both thought we had found out everything there was to be found out, with only a few loose ends left to tie up. But one day I was sifting through some photos and documents when I picked up my original birth certificate and looked again at my place of birth – the Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. I knew Stannington was near Morpeth where Helen lives, so I called her.

‘I know Stannington,’ she said. ‘But I’ve never heard of the Mona Taylor Maternity Home. I can ask around. If it’s still there, I could go and have a look and maybe take some photos.’

‘That would be great. I’d really like to try and find out what it was like there and what happened to me in those six weeks between my birth and my adoption.’

‘And I’d like to know about my missing year,’ added Helen. ‘But I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that.’ She paused. ‘Have you tried looking up the Mona Taylor place online?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t find out much, except one important thing. The National Archives site says there are some patient records from the Mona Taylor that can be seen at Northumberland Archives.’

‘Would they cover your birth date?’

‘Yes, they’re from 1948 to 1951, so they must include my birth in December 1948.’

‘Would you like me to go down there and look at them for you? If you like, I could call them to see when they’re open.’

Helen

I phoned the Northumberland Archives and spoke to their senior researcher.

‘I’m afraid these files are closed for a hundred years,’ he said. ‘So you will need to apply for permission from the guardians for me to search them on your behalf.’

I called Jenny to tell her.

‘I filled in the form, and he said he would do what he could, but we might have to wait for a while.’

‘Well, I did some phoning round too,’ said Jenny. ‘And I spoke to somebody at the Family Placement and Adoption Team. Strangely enough, they’re based in Morpeth. Anyway, the lady there couldn’t tell me much about the Mona Taylor Maternity Home, but she did say something else that stunned me.’

‘What was that?’

‘Apparently the law changed in 1981, allowing adopted children to request to see their original adoption files. That was news to me. I’ve filled in the forms and she’s sending them off for me, so now we’ve both got something to wait for.’

‘Do you know what your file will contain?’

‘No, but it might have all sorts of information I don’t know about.’

These two new lines of enquiry were the start of a long haul of research to see if we could find out anything more about Jenny’s birth and the six weeks before her adoption.

The Mona Taylor boxes were searched, but many of the records were missing and the rest were severely damaged by water, so there was nothing there. However, the archivist did find the admissions register, which listed Mercia Dick, admitted on 1 December 1948 and discharged on 11 December, and her address was given as Bowmer Bank, Morpeth. This was a new trail to follow.

Sadly, when it came, Jenny’s adoption file contained nothing new, so that was a great disappointment. But one by one, we found other avenues to explore. We visited various archives, sent emails, made phone calls to others and spent many long hours on the internet. The clues were few and the waits for information endless. We were in the hands of the paper-shufflers. At every turn we came up against new brick walls and at times we felt it was hopeless, but there was something that kept us going when most people would probably have given up. I can’t explain it. We both felt strongly that it wasn’t over yet.

We were continuously amazed at the coincidences that tied us, even to the point that we often both attempted to call the other at the same time and got engaged signals. We joked about this. ‘Do you think we could be twins?’ Yet now, as the smallest of new clues began to come to light, this whim became less far-fetched and an increasingly serious possibility. But would we ever be able to find the answer?

One of the turning points in our quest was when I got out my own birth certificate again, the one I had found in my mother’s desk as a child. I already knew that two important facts on this certificate were lies – my mother’s surname, and Tommy being named as my father. I now began to wonder anew. I called Jenny.

‘Supposing the date on my birth certificate is wrong?’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘Well, you know we’ve always said we could be twins?’ I took a deep breath. ‘Maybe we could!’

‘Because we’re so alike?’

‘Yes, but that’s not all. Now that I think back to my childhood, why was I always the biggest in the class? And why did I do so well in lessons and in sports? That could have been because I was older than the others, couldn’t it? And I remember distinctly a feeling of being different from my classmates when I was at secondary school. I used to think that was just my background, but now I’m not so sure.’

‘That’s spooky.’

‘Yes, and even amongst my cousins, I seemed to fit in more easily with those older than me than the younger ones. I’ve never really thought about it before, but now I’m wondering . . .’

‘So you think your birth certificate could be a fake?’

‘It’s possible, isn’t it? They told two lies on it, so the whole thing could be a lie. I think I need to do some more research into this.’

‘Well, we might find some clues in some of the other records we’ve requested.’

‘Yes, and I think I’ll go along tomorrow and see if I can find the registration of my baptism.’

‘Hey, this is exciting!’

‘I hope we can find out for sure, one way or the other,’ I said. ‘But yes, wouldn’t it be great?’

The next day I went to the Civic Centre in Newcastle to look at the parish registers and found my baptism on 3 May 1950. At first I was disappointed it was 1950. But then I noticed that it gave my date of birth as 24 April 1950 – three weeks later than the date given on my birth certificate! What was going on here? Couldn’t they even remember when my birthday was? My internal alarm bells were clanging wildly and I had to sit down quietly to calm down and think this through.

Over a period of five months, we must have spent a fortune between us on our researches, mostly to no avail. On many occasions we were frustrated by endless bureaucracy and legal issues. On one occasion we even had to invoke the Freedom of Information Act to access our own details.

Whilst there were many disappointments along the way, we did find out some startling things, and not all of them in the archives. My cousin Alice came up with a surprising comment.

‘Mercia was still seeing Wilfred, you know, when she was living with Tommy, while he was on driving jobs away from home,’ said Alice. ‘I think that went on for quite a while.’

‘Really?’ I was astonished at Mercia’s audacity. ‘That was a bit dangerous,’

‘Yes, I suppose so. But Wilfred definitely knew about you both,’ she said.

Thinking about this afterwards, I couldn’t help wondering now how that could be if we were born separately and Jenny was adopted before Mercia went back to Seghill.

I discovered where the Mona Taylor Maternity Home had been and went to visit its empty building, disused now but in a reasonable state. First I took some photographs, then a woman came over and asked me if I’d like to go inside. She took me round and showed me the institutional passageway that led to the mother and baby rooms. I shuddered as I imagined Mercia entering that stark, cold corridor in labour.

‘It was really weird,’ I explained to Jenny after my visit. ‘When I was standing in the reception area, I had the distinct sensation that I had been there before. I couldn’t explain it, I just felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and my whole body turned cold for a few seconds.’

‘Well, maybe you have been there before.’

We requested a search of the Midwives’ Files, and after the usual frustrating wait, we had an email that said there was ‘an item of a sensitive nature’ that would require more permissions and some counselling before I could see it. That sent my mind racing. What could it be? After several days of phone calls and emails to and fro, the authorities eventually relented and sent it to me. By this time I expected it to set out clear evidence that would end our search. But of course I was wrong, again. However, it was intriguing.

It was a handwritten letter from Mercia to Bowmer Bank, the hostel for unmarried mothers and babies, asking them to take her in for the four weeks leading up to the birth and afterwards. Why had she chosen to go there for this birth, when she’d had all her other babies at home in Seghill? Could it be because it was likely to be more complicated . . . or perhaps to conceal her actions?

I immediately forwarded this to Jenny and then phoned her to discuss it.

‘She doesn’t say anything about expecting twins.’

‘No, but I don’t think they often knew in those days,’ I explained, drawing on my nurse’s training. ‘They were still using those old trumpet things to listen for a heartbeat. Once they’d found one, they didn’t usually listen for another.’

‘She sounds a bit desperate.’

‘Well, it obviously worked. We’ve found out from the Mona Taylor admissions register that she was at Bowmer Bank before and after the birth.’

‘And didn’t Alice tell you that Mercia was there for about three months after my birth?’ asked Jenny.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘But I was adopted at six weeks old,’ she paused. ‘So why did she stay on after that?’

‘Well, Alice was only a child then, so she might not have a very clear memory of it. Maybe I should give her a ring and ask her a bit more about that. But if Mercia did stay longer, there must have been a reason.’

I called Alice.

‘We received a copy of a letter from Mercia to Bowmer Bank in 1948, just before Jenny’s birth,’ I told her. ‘She had written to ask them to take her in.’

‘Oh yes? What else did it say?’ Alice sounded a bit guarded.

‘Nothing we didn’t already know, but she seemed rather desperate.’

‘How did you find this letter?’

‘Well, both Jenny and I are doing some new research into our births. I’ve found out I have two birth dates in 1950, and both of them look as if they could be wrong. It’s made us think, and we’re wondering now whether we could be twins, both born in December 1948. What do you think?’

‘You couldn’t possibly be twins,’ Alice cut in very quickly. ‘I remember my mam taking me to see you as a newborn baby in Newcastle in 1950,’ she said. ‘I told Jenny about this. Mercia was in the bed and you were in a crib alongside. Tommy was there, and so was his sister and her little girl.’

It was the first time I’d ever heard that. Alice would have been about ten if I was born in 1950, and I wondered if she had remembered it right.

‘Are you sure?’

Later, as I thought it all through, I realized that Alice’s memory of me must be mistaken, in part at least. Tommy’s only sister was his half-sister, more than twenty years younger than him, and she would therefore only have been about ten years old in 1950, so she couldn’t have had a little girl of her own.

And there was another thing . . . it was Alice who’d originally told me that nobody knew where Mercia and I were in the first year after my birth. Yet now she was saying she’d visited us in Newcastle. Knowing that Alice and all the rest of the family had been sworn to secrecy by Mercia and Tommy all those years ago, I assumed that would explain the disparity.