My parents, that’s what I have always called them, never called them adoptive parents, and they describe me as their son. They knew of her, my birth mother, went to the same church, she was too young, and didn’t have a great life herself.  It’s a whole new world now, but it was so so different in the late sixties, I was born in June 1967, so she became pregnant in 66. My parents for whatever reason couldn’t have children, they had me, and five years later my sister Gail came along. By the way, I’ve always known that I was adopted, or at least for as long as I can remember.

As far as I was concerned I was in a loving family, although my dad was strict, I was quiet not shy, and had a few good friends, and didn’t do well at school, maybe because of family reasons.
When I was around ten, my mam had a nervous breakdown, it lasted around a year, in and out of a mental hospital, one of the treatments was electric shock treatment from being in a church where she was expected to be perfect (unreasonable of course) as well as a husband that was controlling or worse were maybe the reasons.  I saw my mam do strange things, when she was at home. One day, I was taken to the next door neighbour’s house because my mam tried to kill herself, I remember the ambulance arriving. I can’t remember any further details, maybe blocked from my mind. A divorce followed, and loved with my dad, had no choice in this, saw my man every two weeks, my dad soon got married his new wife didn’t get or like me, once I ended up with mash potato on my head. I left at sixteen and went back to my mam: she had remarried someone similar to my dad, but she was happy. After a few months he asked me to leave. I then stayed with a family from church, a friend I had. At 18, I stayed in bedsits then one flat after another.  From my early teens, I started to develop a stammer. 

At a church event near London, I was told in passing that my birth mother had died, three months earlier.  On the way back home, I cried like never before or since.  Maybe from losing a mother and from the disappointment, losing my real mother as I called her.  I still had contact with my dad, he took to find out about her. We went to Scarborough where we lived. I came back with some photos of her, a birth and death certificate, and a newspaper cutting, as she had died as the result of a house fire that happened in her kitchen, she ran into the street in flames. Her death certificate reads ‘open verdict’.  In the news paper cutting, there is a photo of a ten year old boy, Darren, whom I have never met, my brother.

I found it hard to to form relationships, but went on to have two since 2000. In 1988 I went to work in Mine Head, Butlins. I really enjoyed it, then left after three seasons. I decided to have speech therapy. In the early 90s, I went back to college, for tasters, went on to do an access course: reading law, philosophy, sociology & psychology. This lead to an applied social science degree, that I graduated from in ’97.  After that I did a counselling course, which fell through because of placements. I then had to have counselling, so I know what it feels like to counsel others, seven sessions, I had ten.  I had a lot to talk about: issues of loss and feeling left out and excluded. I have always had low confidence but with time I have got stronger. Since 2000, I have worked in care. The past has made me a caring and empathetic person…I think maybe if someone else had gone through something similar, they might have gone off the rails but not me! I have always had an optimistic outlook on life, because life is too short to do otherwise!!!