Chosen

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