Doris was born in 1942 and was fostered out to loving parents. She never attended the Foundling Hospital School as unusually she was allowed to be adopted by her foster parents. She was aware from the earliest age that her parents were not her birth parents, but this has not diminished her love for them or driven her to seek her birth mother. She has worked a number of jobs and was married for thirty-two years before the death of her husband in 2000. She became a Christian at 40 and lives a very active life with friends and involvement in a number of groups and societies including volunteering at the Museum.
Early Life
‘And my mum and dad, right from before I can remember, before I can remember being in my pram even, I, knew, that, I wasn’t theirs. They knew, that when I was four or five, I was going, to be taken way and they, right from the very beginning, prepared me, for that, and I just grew up knewing that I wasn’t theirs, and at some point I was going to have to go back to the home. And I accepted this as being words, because kids of that age don’t know what being yours, and not being yours, I mean medically or whatever, I didn’t know, about children and whose was, whose, so I didn’t really understand that bit except that I wasn’t theirs, and I did think, well if I am not theirs, I wonder whose I am. And the other thing that confused me was, I’d got to go back to the home. Everybody else I knew lived in their home, so, where quite did I live? ‘Cause I’d to go back to mine at some point. And I did, when I was small, I was totally… insecure… to the point where, if I had a new pencil or a comic, I would take them with me to school or down the town wherever I went, because I didn’t know, if I was coming back, to collect them. When I had to go to the home, I didn’t want to go without my pencil, or, without finishing my comic, and I, I realise now, I was totally insecure, not knowing when I went out, whether I was coming back. Suddenly, I don’t know how much notice they got, but they knew that they were going to be allowed to adopt me, and then they started to say, “Oh, you’re going to, we’re going to adopt you,” or whatever words they used, “and we’ve got to go to court.” ‘Cause it’s all done officially, in a court, and off we went, one day, and my birth mother was there, I was very chary, ’cause I knew this all had to do with, not being theirs, and going back to the home and stuff, and I don’t think I physically let go of my mum the whole time these proceedings took place, just in case, I was ready to hang on.’
School Life
‘Coram have always looked after their kids medically. I had a squint. Still have. And I wasn’t allowed to go to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, one of the best hospitals in the world, I had to come up to London and go to Moorfields and Harley Street to a specialist, because the Foundation had these connections with the medical world and their kids were given the best treatment they could have. So off I used to come fairly regularly, and, when I was adopted I was then allowed to be transferred to Addenbrooke’s, where I am sure the treatment was no worse, but, there was that final cut then, of me being no longer a part of Coram’s organisation.’
Search for Birth Families
‘I felt, I already had, one mum and dad, and I had a mum- and dad-in-law, and really the thought of, getting involved with another one, I, I felt that I owed certainly my first two and, and, to an extent my, my in-laws, I owed them, and to be leaving them, in a sense, to get involved with another one, I didn’t feel was right, and, it would have broken my mum’s heart. My mum now is, I believe 84, if she’s still alive and, there… it’s a very risky business for a start. The trouble I could cause for an 84-year old lady, don’t bear thinking about in her last five minutes, does it? That’s not worth me just having the satisfaction of a look at her, I don’t think, and of course, there could be the horrible other thing that we just do not get on, that she don’t want me to get a look at her and that stuff.’
