No More Bastards

Once I realized that you weren't Johnny's I told the social worker. She told me to lie to Johnny. By this time we were married, but we still hadn't found a flat to rent and were staying with his mother on the caravan. You had to stay with a foster family and I didn't get to see you often because you were very far away. Three months passed where I didn't see you at all, and then when I finally got to visit you I realized “Oh, my God, she's not Johnny's. You were fair skinned, blue eyed. You were just like your dad.” I told the social worker that you were Neil's and she suggested I lie to Johnny. “You're husband need never know,” she told me. But I couldn't lie to him. He wasn't daft. He would have guessed, or his mother would have told him. I ended up telling him the truth and he hit the roof.

“I've taken in one bastard that ain't mine. I'm not taking in another,” he yelled.

Three Babies, Three Fathers

Johnny told me that if I kept you he would divorce me immediately. I was already pregnant with a third child. I had no choice but to have you adopted. There's no way I could have survived then as an unmarried mother -- or as a young divorcee -- with three babies. So, you went back into foster care. I know that the social worker wrote Neil a letter saying that he was your father, and that he had the right to visit you before you went up for adoption. They told me that he said he would visit you, but he never did. It angered me that he couldn't be bothered to see his first child, but Neil always was a selfish person.

Bloody Catholic GP

It broke my heart to lose you. But I told myself that I might never had had you anyway. I had thought early on in the pregnancy that I would get an abortion. This was largely because I felt so sick with the pregnancy, and I knew that Johnny and I could not afford to have a child so soon, especially in light of the fact that I already had Juliet. I asked my GP for an abortion, but he turned out to be a bloody Catholic, and a bit of a fanatical one at that. He said that he wouldn't perform an abortion on me.

A Lot of Stigma

I want you to know that I was glad in the end to have you, and Johnny was excited too about the idea of becoming a father. He had agreed to adopt Juliet and raise her, but I know he was especially looking forward to having his own child.
So, when it came to you being born I went away to Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London. It was the nearest hospital that would take me. Local hospitals didn't like dealing with unmarried mothers. There was a lot of stigma to having a child out of wedlock back then.

Unmarried Mothers

I remember the nurses at Queen Charlotte's were really rude and rough with me. They treated us unmarried mothers like we were a piece of shit, as if we were prostitutes. But when you were born I stayed in the hospital a few days, on the ward for unmarried mothers, and I nursed you. You were a healthy looking baby and seemed happy enough. I did breastfeed you at first even though I knew I wouldn't be able to take you home because I was living on the caravan with Johnny and his mum. We wouldn't be getting married for another three months yet.

My Brother Patrick

My mother couldn't take you in either. She was already caring for Juliet, who had marked her second birthday just two days after you were born. But she also had Carl and Mark to look after; they were still toddlers. Anne and Richie were in their teens and still at home, plus there was Patrick, who was still a baby himself. How could I forget Patrick? Your Uncle Patrick died when he was 23. He suffered a brain tumour. It was really unexpected and such a shock to us all, but for mum it was devastating. It was awful for Pauline too, his wife, and the two little boys he left behind.

My Dad's Antics

Now that I think about it, I don't know how my mum managed with all those kids at home, in that small council flat. My dad had left her just a few months before I got pregnant. He was a drunken sod. It wasn't like he'd found another woman or anything like that, although I know he had affairs from time to time, and during his time in the Merchant Navy he had often visited prostitutes — he never made any secret about it either. He laughed and joked about it quite openly at home. My dad seemed quite proud of all the antics he got up to. He didn't care about mum and how she felt when he was blabbing on about it all. I was glad when he left. As the eldest I had to cook and clear up after that filthy bastard.