Searching for Christopher

Marian now lives in Birmingham she shares the nightmare of having her child taken from her. At the age of 18 in 1964 she was an unmarried mother.

I was born in 1946. I have two sisters who are four years older and ten years older than me. Both my parents worked and they were very lovely although my dad was more for me than my mum. My mum sort of looked upon my elder sister more than anybody. The sun shone out of her.

When I was eighteen I met this boy who was of a similar age. I got pregnant but I didn't tell him, I didn't tell my parents and I didn't tell anybody until I was about six months pregnant. They sort of realised and I was sent away down to my sisters in the midlands. My middle sister was getting married and I went away before she got married. When she did get married my mother told all the guests that I was a nursery nurse and couldn't get time off. I had the baby on the 22nd of December. I asked the sister in the hospital if I should breast-feed or bottle-feed as I was going to a mother and baby home. She advised me to breast feed, which I did do. Children had always been my life; I had always revolved around children. Obviously I looked after the little boy; a little lad named Christopher. When he was nine days old two social workers came and said that the mother and baby home that I was going to was full and that they were coming to take Christopher away from me. They did do when he was ten days old on New Years Eve.

From the hospital I got a taxi back to my sisters'. She was in town in Birmingham. My other sister was baking. I was asked why I had wasted money getting a taxi home. That night my eldest sister left me babysitting her two children while she and my other sister went out.

The following morning the social workers actually rung up my sisters home to see if I had got home from the hospital. They thought I might have done something because I was so upset. I never told my mother or father any of this. It took me a long, long time to realise that my eldest sister had arranged for the baby to be taken off me because I was getting too fond of him.

I had to go down to Warwick when Christopher was three months old to identify him so he could be placed up for adoption. He had already got his adoptive parents and I couldn't do to them what had been done to me. So I allowed the adoption to carry on because then when I was eighteen the age of consent was twenty-one. I didn't think I had the right to stop this happening. Years after you realise things that have come out, obviously my mother wouldn't have been able to help me. She had had a very traumatic life, which we didn't know about until after my mother had died. When you reckon up now it is very upsetting that they can have all the help now. It is better now that they can have all the help they get. When I had Christopher another person could come in and say, "You take that baby away. That person is getting too fond off that baby. ". That's wrong; the person themselves should be able to have a say.

Two years after Christopher was adopted I met somebody else and I got pregnant with my eldest daughter who is now thirty-three. I didn't get married and a neighbor across the way who had seen me grow up said that I only wanted something of my own to love. I think with the fact that they had taken Christopher away from me that I did need something. Of my own choice I went away to Blackpool, to the Church of England 'house of hell', another mother and baby home. My sister wrote to me then and said that if I was keeping the child I was expecting I had not to treat the home where I was as my home. She also said to burn the letter and not let my mum and dad see it. I put it in the fire but it wasn't switched on and I think mummy and daddy did find it and they did actually stand by me. I had decided that I was going to go away and take the baby with me and get a job away. My mum just told me "No. You are coming home."

Years and years afterwards I told my mum what had happened with Christopher and she was devastated. She just couldn't believe that her daughter had done such a horrible thing. Looking back I do blame my sister because I am a very caring person. For somebody who has two children to take that attitude it just doesn't seem right does it. My mother didn't know what was happening, she was up in Lancashire and we were down in the midlands. My sister was a very domineering person. She domineered both my mother and my father. She was on a pedestal all the time.

Everyday I think about Christopher. I hate Christmas. It's just something that I go through every year and I just go to bed. End of story. It's horrible that birth mothers aren't allowed to love their children and their siblings are allowed to love when they are eighteen. Christopher can look for me. That is one reason that for thirty odd years I never moved from the house that was on the adoption papers. And from then on I have only moved the once. If he were to come and look for me it would be wonderful. My eldest daughter was thinking about looking for him but is frightened of rejection, frightened of whether his adoptive parents have told him about me and what they have told him about me. This is what has made her wary of looking for Christopher. What amazed me more than anything is that somebody could be so uncaring when they've got children of their own.