Is it that time already?

Wednesday, 2 November 2016

Chosen

Where do babies come from?

It’s one of those questions which every parent dreads, but which has to be answered honestly. Nowadays, it’s all taught in school, but back in my own day, such subjects were strictly off limits.

I remember asking my mum and dad that question as a young child, and I remember the standard answer. Apparently, they found me at the bottom of the garden in the middle of the cabbage patch.

I realise, now, of course, that this was not true, but as a boy of four years old, I really believed it. Perhaps it explains why it took me years to get around to enjoying cabbage with my meals.

As I grew a little older, the explanation changed, and they began to use a different word entirely. They told me that I had been ‘chosen’. The image which I was given was one of being in a long line of babies, and my mum and dad coming along and choosing me out of all the others. I must say that it made me feel rather special, and my status of being ‘chosen’ was not unwelcome as I began to feel my way into the world.

The cabbage years came and went, and then, in due course, I began to realise that the word ‘chosen’ was not quite what it seemed.

For when I was about eight years old, I think, they told me that being chosen actually meant that they were not my ‘real’ mum and dad, and that I had been adopted, welcomed into the family, courtesy of the Salvation Army home where I had been born, and from where I had been ‘chosen’.

Of course, this was a big secret, and they asked me never to talk about it to anyone. Even the closest family members were not to be included in the secret, and to this day, I still have no idea who among my cousins knows the truth. Even my grandfather didn’t know the truth. He lived in Yorkshire and, every year, he would send me a postal order for £1 for my birthday. Although this was on the 6^th. March, for some reason, he always sent it on the 9^th. May. I recall asking my dad why this was, and he explained that Grandad was just a ‘bit confused’. I later discovered that he had been given to understand that my real birthday was the 9^th. May, which in fact was the day when I officially arrived in the new family from the Salvation Army. He was never told the truth, and to be honest, I really don’t know why. I guess things were different back then.

As I grew older, I managed to live with the idea that I had been adopted, and to be honest, it didn’t make any difference to my life. My mum and dad were still my mum and dad, and my relationship with them was as strong as ever. I even carried my dad’s name – Terence Lord Hudson – and did so with a sense of pride which still remains.

Later on, I found out that he himself had been ‘chosen’, and that his twin brother, also ‘chosen’, was now living in Australia. They had never met, and my Grandad had insisted that there should never be any contact between them. Again, I am not sure why this should have been, but the pattern continued for me.

My mum and dad, having explained the reality to me, asked that I should never make any effort to contact my natural mother or father, and my dad was adamant that this should remain a closed chapter in my life. All very strange now, but back then, I agreed, for I really had no wish to make my life any more complicated, and I sensed that this was a critical issue for my dad. Looking back, I can only imagine that he might have felt threatened had I linked up with my natural family, but of course, his fears were totally unfounded. I had only known one dad, and he was the only dad I could ever wish for.

But to please him, I complied, at least for many years.

The crunch came when I was lying in a hospital bed in A&E, having suffered pains in my chest. As I lay there, linked up to all the monitors and wires, the nurse came around with her clipboard.

“Is there any history of heart disease in your family?”

What could I say? I simply responded that I really had no idea, since I was adopted, and had never known my biological family.

As I lay in the bed, reflecting on what had just been said, I made a ‘deal’ with God. Basically, if you get me through this, I will do my best to find out the answer to the question.

Thankfully, as you can probably tell, I managed to survive that episode, and so the quest began. Our elder son, Andrew, is very much interested in family trees, and he made it his aim to investigate on my behalf.

It didn’t take long to discover the real story, but it did involve a trip for Andrew and myself to Edinburgh, to the National Registry Office for Scotland. There, having established my identity, I was presented with my file, which had been sitting on a shelf for over fifty years. Within, there were my original birth documents, and a small brown envelope containing a written note from a young girl to her ‘darling Ian’, from whom she would soon be parted.

It’s all a bit surreal looking back now, but putting it simply, I discovered that my biological parents had gone on to get married, and they had four subsequent children. Overnight, as it were, I became the eldest sibling of three brothers and one sister. Since then, we have made contact, and I have met them all, and we keep in touch at Christmas and through social media such as Facebook.

Sadly, my sister died not long after our reunion, remarkably enough from a sudden heart attack, which at least gave me a less than reassuring answer to the nurse’s question on my subsequent visits to A&E.

As I reflect on my life, it does seem something of a minor miracle that I am where I am today. Had things gone in a different direction, some would say in a more natural direction, I would have been brought up in the east end of Glasgow, the eldest of five children, in a Roman Catholic household.

As it is, having been born under the care of the Salvation Army at their home for wayward girls, then adopted by my mum and dad, I travel full circle, firstly by becoming a Salvation Army Officer, and then as a Methodist minister.

Does God have a plan for my life? I am certain that he does, and my journey thus far only goes to prove that to me.

We now have a granddaughter who has been similarly ‘chosen’. Lottie joined our family in November 2014, and she is a real source of love and joy. Maybe she wasn’t technically ‘chosen’, but if we had a choice, we would have chosen Lottie for sure.

And something else, which may be difficult to believe, but I can assure you is true, but it seems that football affiliation is genetic, and not a product of our upbringing. Nature, not nurture, as it were. Although all my family, my dad, my brother, my cousins etc. were ardent supporters of Rangers, I found that I was always cheering for Celtic, despite the fact that they were the team only supported by the Catholics. How can that be, you might wonder? Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I prefer to think that God has a sense of humour!

My new family - Dad, Mum, Auntie Clara, Auntie Nan, Gran, cousins Alistair and Linda - Stratford Street, Maryhill, Glasgow

Just Fifteen

Just Fifteen

She was just fifteen.

Just fifteen, and very afraid.

After all, in the 1950’s in Glasgow, for an unmarried teenage girl to fall pregnant was a terrifying experience. Worse still, this baby would be a hybrid, as well as a bastard.

The father was a Catholic, of good Catholic stock from the East End, whilst the mother was from the other side, a Protestant, the other Glaswegian tribe, from across the divide.

The shame, the black affrontery of it all was just too much for the families to bear, so she was ‘put away’ for the period of her confinement.

That was how she ended up on a large Victorian house in the west end of the city. It was run by the Salvation Army, and was called ‘Homeland’. Essentially, a safe place for fallen girls, and it was to become her residence for nine months.

The ladies in charge were very kind and well-meaning, of course, as one might expect from the Sally Army, but for this girl, it was a time of loneliness and abandonment. No visits from the family, no real communication with the outside world, dependent for everything upon the generosity of the staff.

As the child grew within her, so did that sense of dread, for she knew what lay ahead. She was aware of what would come of her child, at least for a few short weeks.

The bond between the child and the mother who carries for nine months is something rather sacred, and as the days of her confinement passed, so she became increasingly aware that this child, the child of her womb, could never really belong to her.

To do such a thing, to return to the outside world, with a baby but no husband, was simply unthinkable. Such a scandal has to be avoided at all cost. Perhaps there had been a time when she considered a termination, but such things were illegal in those days, and, of course, highly dangerous.

So for nine months, Homeland was her home. And for six weeks after the event.

For on March 6^th. 1954, after her labour, she gave birth to her son, whom she named Ian, after her brother.

For six weeks, she looked after her child. Bathed him, suckled him, dressed him, loved him. By now, of course, she was sixteen, suddenly having to grow up fast, without the network of family support she might have expected in normal circumstances.

As the days passed, so she knew that the inevitable sadness would come. For her Ian would no longer be her Ian. Indeed, no longer her’s at all. Adoption was the only route available for the little boy, and mum knew that this was approaching fast.

She used the time wisely, and among all the other mumsy things that she had to do, she began to knit. A blue cardigan for her little boy. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had, and all that she was allowed to give.

The Salvation Army lady was very gentle, of course, as she took Ian from his mum’s arms. ‘He has to go now’, she said, amid tears.

A final kiss on the forehead, a caress of the hand, and he was gone.

She went over to the window, and from there, through the curtains, she saw Ian’s new parents come out of the front door, carrying her child. She wanted to cry out, but sometimes even silent screams are hard to come by.

They all got into the car, and they drove off, and she wept.

And wept.

She was just fifteen.

Thursday, 8 December 2011