North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Alex
a night time
and the telephone rang but unfortunately I wasn’t in. It said, if you would
ring back after nine o’clock he’d be in because he is just going to pick his
son up from work. As my son was working in Sunderland. So I came in and
Beryl my girlfriend she says, ‘there’s a woman been on the phone for you.
‘Who’ve you been with? Ye know’. I says, ‘what’s her name?’ she says, ‘I
don’t know, she’s going to ring back at nine o’clock’. So I says, ‘alright
then’. So, I was doing work on the computer, cause I run a service for
disabled people and erm the phone rang and she says, ‘is that Alexander
Adams?’ I says, ‘yes.’ She says, ‘it’s me mammy’. I says, ‘ye mammy’.
‘Yeah Maureen’. I says, ‘what’s the matter with her pet?’ Because I
thought it was me niece because, me niece, after her father died in ’62 they
moved back to Ireland, were living in Belfast, I thought what’s the matter
with Maureen, what’s the matter? She says, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong end
of the story here.’ I said, ‘well, ye know, what’s the matter?’ She says,
‘well my mammy’s called Maureen but she changed her name’ and I clicked. I
said, ‘was her name Amanda Mulvena?’ She says, ‘I think so’ and I just
said, ‘well you’re me niece’. ‘Yes I will be’ and she says, ‘well the
problem is mammy is looking for a brother that she didn’t know that she had
until a fortnight ago’ and it was funny erm, Jeannette who was living in
England at the time, in Manchester er, actually found some of the relatives
but they didn’t divulge anything about the families. I said, ‘well yes pet,
I says, that’s your mammy, my sister’ and I put the phone down because
Jeannette says, ‘I’ll phone mammy and say, yes you’ll speak to her and you
recognise her, says, ‘right o, I’ll just sit and wait’. So I put the phone
down and I burst into tears. Me girlfriend was happy for us, I was on the
phone right round the family, ‘I’ve found me sister, I’ve found me sister’
Everything was buzzing and I sat there and I sat there and the phone never
rang again, a says well she may not want to speak to us. Then all of a
sudden the phone rang, says, ‘do you mind if I give you a telephone number
for me mammy?’ I says, well, ‘yeah just put her on the phone’. She says,
‘no me mammy is in Northern Ireland’. I says, ‘yeah tell her to phone’ and,
I just can’t explain, or give you words how it was to find your long lost
sister because we’d been apart for 55 years and that’s a long time. So, I
got talking to Maureen, then Maureen got talking to me. We’d phone each
other every night and we’d speak for hours on end and Maureen said, ‘look
you’ve got to come over to Ireland to see us’. I says, ‘right o’. So, I
arranged to go over for a fortnight but when I got there Maureen said,
‘you’re here for 6 weeks’. I said, ‘oh no a fortnight’. ‘No, we’ll
compromise you’re here for a month’, so I was there for a month and Maureen
had to sort of do some mangling with the family over in Ireland where the
adoptee father would have to be taken to one of the grandchildren’s house,
which was Anna, while I came over and er met Maureen for the first time and
honest she said, ‘I’ll meet you off the plane’, I says, ‘how will you
recognise us is that I will have a rucksack and me flying jacket on’ So I
get to Belfast international, gets me gear on to the buggy and had just put
me cases on and I don’t know what it was, but I just caught out of the right
hand side of me eye a flash of somebody running and I thought, ‘oh my god,
ye know is this the bloody IRA or what?’ and then I just turned and this
woman, who is my sister, practically rugby tackled me and knocked us on me
backside nearly and er she says, ‘I told you I’d tell ye welcome you to
Ireland’ I says, ‘ye didn’t ye knocked me over’. But not to worry, erm I
got there. I met Willy her husband, and I met
