When journalist and broadcaster Andrew Pierce, 63, found his birth mother 15 years ago, he was overjoyed. But, as he explains, it didn’t bring the fairy tale ending he was hoping for
Extraordinary things happen, I’ve discovered, when you write about the search for your birth mother. Within just a few days of the publication of my book, Finding Margaret:
Solving the mystery of my birth mother, in May, I had received dozens of letters, emails and calls. They were nearly all from people who had been given up for adoption, like me. Some of their stories were heart-wrenching; some even said I’d inspired them to track down their own birth mother.
But by far the most significant contact came from the family of Margaret Connolly, my birth mother, who’d put me in an orphanage after I was born on 10 February 1961, and given me up for adoption when I was two years old.
Her four children had no idea I existed until I told them about my book (before publication, of course), even though I’d tracked down their mum 15 years ago, just before my 50th birthday.
Nor did their late father Patrick Lennon, whom Margaret had married when I was still in the orphanage. My half-siblings were astonished to hear that I existed and there are now tentative plans for us all to meet in Birmingham, where they live. If it happens it will be yet another extraordinary twist in the remarkable journey I’ve been on. I have always known I was adopted. My mum and dad told me that at birth I’d been placed in Nazareth House in Cheltenham, when I was known as Patrick James, and they had adopted me when I was two, going on three.
My wonderful parents had given me everything a child could ask for and I dreaded Mum ever finding out that I was searching for my birth mother, because I knew she would be devastated. Even thinking about it would bring tears to my eyes.
I had always told her that blood wasn’t thicker than water; she was the only mum I wanted. However, my dad, George, a softly spoken, gentle Cockney, would often grip my hand and whisper, ‘Son, find your birth mother. She visited you [in the orphanage] when she could. She deserves to know you’re happy and successful. But for God’s sake don’t tell your mother!’
In the end my natural curiosity got the better of me. Approaching 50, I wrote to the Sisters of Nazareth and asked for my ‘file’ – which is how I ended up sitting opposite a kind-looking social worker from the council in Camden, where I lived. I sensed that she was hesitant. Finally, with a slight sigh, she placed her palm on the file and said, ‘Could I just say a few words? Your birth mother went to quite extraordinary lengths to cover her tracks.
