Taking Control

It is no coincidence that within one and a half hours of a phone call with my adoption social worker who has admitted to doing nothing since submitting a request to Borough of Greenwich for my adoption file seven weeks ago, had managed to contact the adoption service at Greenwich and write a letter to Woolwich County Court.  The court holds historical adoption papers, but this need permission from a judge to open them. These papers often hold different information, so why didn’t she write sooner.  I am so angry because we are nine weeks on from our initial meeting and only now after a rather heated telephone call has she decided to take any interest.  She had the audacity to say that I don’t answer my telephone.  She called four times over three days and left me messages of no more than twelve seconds and left me no contact number.  I have cerebral palsy and screen all my calls so a twelve second message is not long enough for me to get to the phone to answer it.  I was lucky that I caught her fourth call but didn’t expect her to treat me in such a rude manner.

She was just so full of excuses and then started to blame Greenwich for their lazy attitude.  All I said was that I expected an update from her after six weeks even if there was nothing to report, it’s called customer service!  She tried to say that is how she worked and I simply said it doesn’t work for me and I would like a monthly update; she eventually agreed.
 My original email was to ask if she could release to me any information from the report she held from 1996 after all I had a photocopy of the first page of a three-page document and reluctantly she did.  She has never liked the fact that I’m a researcher and have done far better than any I have paid.  I had previously emailed her in late January with information I had discovered after going through some photos that my mum had in a memory box which I had not touched since she died in 2014.  I had come across a photo of my christening party and on the reverse, was a couple of sentences that said that I was adopted through moral welfare and that the moral welfare woman was my godmother in her own handwriting.  I saw this a breakthrough because for years we had been unable to ascertain which agency or organisation I was adopted through.  I thought my social worker would find this helpful but guess what she never heard of Moral Welfare Workers who were the equivalent of social workers of their time, guess what I’m not surprised.  Funny though that every other organisation and agency has heard of them and if you do a search there is a fair bit that can be found online.
By 4:20pm she had emailed me to say she had a message from Greenwich to say that they only had the report that I knew about, let’s say I wasn’t surprised or disappointed at least I know that is now a closed avenue.  I didn’t email her until this morning to inform her I was not disappointed because it was what I had expected but would wait to see what comes back from the county court.  I’m not joking no sooner than I had sent the email my phone rang; it was her trying to get me to use a researcher which I politely declined.  I have been down that route several times with very poor results and empty pockets. 

My experiences over twenty odd years has turned me into a rather a good researcher and I have used this skill to help other organisations and charities.If I have learnt anything from the past nine weeks is that you must push some of these adoption social workers to work for you.  If you have a good one cherish them but if you are like me don’t give up and make them work for you. Good luck in your searches.

Under The Guise of The Church of England

I am finding it hard to express the words how I am feeling right now after my last appointment with Norfolk Adoption Services.  I went into the meeting with a lot of positivity.  I wasn't expecting miracles I was just hoping that we could put the question of who I was adopted through to bed, once and for all.  All the evidence shows it was a private arrangement under the guise of the Church of England.  Looking back over all the evidence I think I knew that all along, but it was nice to hear it from someone else.

I did however feel that the social worker had put the feelings and emotions of my birth mother before mine.  I can understand in part her argument that Joan may not have told her family about me, but we know she had told them and so that argument has gone out of the window.  It was explained that if they could locate her they would make contact under the guise of asking her about another adopted family member, this is no better that the Church of England in my opinion.

Empathy now seems to go with birth mothers who were pressured into giving up their new born babies in the 1960's by the church.  I can only imagine the heartache these young women felt, but there is another side to the story and that is the babies stories.  Recently I have seen on my Facebook postings of women looking for their adopted babies.  It is not right and against the law for these women to do so, the person who has posted these doesn't realize the harm they are doing.  The law is there to protect the child.  I have made the decision to try and locate my birth mother Joan Irene Dawson because I want to meet her but that is as far as it will go for me.  I don't want a relationship, I already have a mum and dad. 

I am feeling deflated by the appointment because I am not sure how it went.  If I was to be truthful I don't know how much more help they can offer.  I am rather curious by some of her questions, I do understand that background information is always helpful but I felt some of her questions were inappropriate, from the outset I told her that I was estranged from my brother and his family since May 2016.  That piece of information seems to have gone over her head as she persisted to continue with questions about my brother and his family.  I am usually a strong person but she had caught my vulnerable side and I felt pressured to answer them, she even knows the firm where he works and that scares me.  I really hope that she does not try and contact my brother or his children because I have only just started to live without fear of him making waves.  It is barely a year since I lifted restrictions on when I opened emails in case it was from him and it is a place I do not want to go back to.
I think she was surprised by the amount of information I have relating to my birth mother's family, I have accumulated over twenty odd years from research but also from what I was told by my parents.  I have a list of things she wanted me to get, some pieces I can understand but others I simply can't see how they will help trace Joan.  I have all the information on my laptop relating to her immediate family and have now passed it on and that is where we are right now.

An Important Appointment

Tomorrow I have a fairly big appointment coming up with Norfolk County Council Adoption Services to see if they can find me some answers.  Late last year I exhausted every possible lead I had been given.  My last chance was The Children Society because I was always told that my adoption was arranged through the Church of England and knowing that I was feeling positive.  But a few days after my initial enquiry it came back that they had no record of me or my birth mother.  The post adoption team were very helpful and hence I now have an appointment with the council.

It is not that I don't have any information about my birth mother I do, in fact I have a lot.  Even knowing she got married in 1968 and later divorced.  I have a lot of stories told to me over the years by my adoptive mother and naturally because she had my birth mothers name and address I believed everything she told me.

Partly out of respect to my mother when she was alive I only searched in a half-hearted way.  In 1996 I had been to the council to get a CA5, which entitles you to get your original birth certificate.  My birth certificate gave no new surprises and I was a bit deflated for a while.  At that time the council only found one piece of paper on file for me, even they were surprised.

Now my mother is no longer with me I need to find answers.  Just to know which adoption agency or society I was adopted through would be enough.  But even that is difficult, surely a child cannot be born and adopted and have no paperwork.  All I do know is that my birth mother registered me and a report was done and I have the court order and that's it.  It is now twenty years and I am hoping that files that may have got mislaid back then can now be found.  I am trying to be positive.  I write an update in the next few days.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me.  

Yet Another Dead End

For the last few days I have been waiting on the post adoption team to come back to me hopefully with new information around my adoption in 1964.  All my life I was told that I was adopted through the Church of England and today I was told in an email that I was not adopted through the church. They believe that I was adopted through London County Council.  This has stirred up a whole new level of emotion for me, I do not know what to believe anymore.  It all seems all cloak and dagger and has now thrown up more questions than answers.

I don't really know anyone else who has been adopted but I am sure that if I was put up for adoption through the council I would have gone into care first, instead I was told that I was taken home from the hospital at ten days old and adopted in just over eighteen weeks with no social services involvement.  I now find this situation totally unreal.  I thought everything I was told growing up was the truth but now I am wondering what were they trying to hide.  Everyone I contact doesn't seem to know where to send me next.

I thought I had a close relationship with my parents but I now wonder.  I thought they were honest and truthful people and everything we did together feels tarnished and I can't ask them because they are no longer here.

My Story

My life has been defined by the way in which I was raised by my parents who were the kindest, loving and honest people I know, well that is what I thought and now it appears they were liberal with the truth about my adoption.

I was born at the British Mothers and Babies Hospital in Woolwich, London on 22 November 1963.  My birth mother's name was Joan Irene Dawson and she came from Brockley.  My parents took me home ten days later and my adoption was finalised on 8th April 1964 at Woolwich County court.

I thought my parents never hid anything from me but it has been an uphill struggle for twenty years often hitting a brick wall and like most adopted people I didn't feel a need to trace my birth mother until I hit my thirties and I went through the system to get the required paperwork to release me a copy of my birth certificate.

There has been many anomalies with my adoption and for many years I pushed them to one side.  The first time I took notice was after seeing someone at social services who gave me access to my adoption file and it held one piece of paperwork a report on a application to adopt from a Guardian-ad-litem. 
Alarm bells should had rung then but I wanted to believe my parents that had brought me up from a tiny baby.  They seemed to know a lot about my birth mother Joan and this has made me revisit my past conversations with my mother.  I was told that I was adopted through the Church of England which I never questioned.  My mother told me that a woman a Mrs Letts was involved in some way and for the adoption to proceed she had to be a named godparent.  Looking back I found this odd because aren't your godparents meant to be close family or friends that your parents choose not a virtual stranger.  Also my own godfather's name keeps coming up in the mix, he baptised me 26th April 1964 at his church St Alfege in Greenwich.  When I asked him about my godparents he was very sheepish about the whole thing.
My birth mother had turned up several times with presents and money for me and a toy car for my brother.  I never thought about it before but she knew where my family lived and that I had an older brother.
I have done the usual tracing and even hired a researcher and I have only found a few snippets of interest one that my birth mother married in 1968 and new surname of Whatley.  I have tried that as a trace but they divorced in the 1970's I believe.
For a few years I have not done any research but now I have the time I am determined to find out the truth behind my adoption.  A couple of days ago I called PACT but they had no record but passed me onto the Children's Society Post Adoption Team who are trying their hardest to help.  A quick search showed no record of my adoption but they are still hopeful and I am waiting on hearing back.  I am looking at getting my baptism entry and I am hoping that I am wrong about this mysterious Mrs Letts being a godparent.  If she is on the entry I will have serious doubts about my adoption and everything I was told.  I have had it suggested that it might have been a private adoption, I thought that was illegal in the UK.
For me my adoption has been hushed up but I will get to the bottom of it.