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.