North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Maureen

Er, so uh, so as I say between NEPAS and doing work on my behalf over here and Mr Richardson trying to get me documents er, we the, Jeanette, was actually doing things too she said that she knew somebody that worked at BT and we asked him, said, ye know, ‘look for this name on the list of telephones’ which he shouldn’t have done but he tried anyway.  So we’ll not go into details about that but he came away with a number anyway.  So Jeannette says, ‘I have this number’ and er, she says, I says, ‘well will you try it?’  She obviously tried it and said, ‘mammy don’t get any answer’.  And I says, ‘well give me the number’ anyways so we tried it and tried, and tried, and tried er.  To finish up she says er, ‘I got somebody, somebody who was very cross and said Sarah was in a home and she asked me was it Washington Lodge?’  Well that was my Aunt Sarah, found out it was my Aunt Sarah who had been married to er, to a man who had already had a family and er so we got the telephone number for the home and enquired and right enough she was there.  So Jeannette she, er come from Manchester up to Washington Lodge and walked in.  My aunt was very ill but she looked at her and she just knew right away who she was, as soon as she walked in to the door.  And she says, didn’t really say all that much but she, all she says was, ‘ye should have been kept together, should have been kept together’.  And ye know didn’t really say that much but that was more or less ye know and then Jeannette was telling her who she was and she kept nodding and showing her photographs and things like that.  And she come back and she says, she come out with more questions than I did answers, mammy, ye know.  So err, we kept phoning anyway to find out but then Sarah went back, she had went into hospital and er er, through a few different avenues.  We got another number, we found out another number which was er, was, er I forget what his name was, it was actually, he was actually Sarah’s stepson.  We had this other address ye see.  So, we, again we tried the number and er he says that er, a whole lot of, he says, ‘we’ll give you Joyce’s number’.  Well I thought it was actually was going to be his sister Joyce, that would be his step-daughter ye see and I said, ‘well that’s alright then’.  So we took down this number but we tried this number again every day for a good fortnight morning noon and night and we couldn’t get any answer at all.  Even Jeannette tried but one day I sat down on a chair and I had the number sitting on the arm of the chair and I was sitting having a coffee and I says, ‘I’ll try this number one more time’.  So I, I phoned anyway and this strong voice says, ‘hello’, says, ‘Oh, hello’.  Well I tell you always to have a story, ye don’t just go straight in cold and say, ‘I’m this, that and the other’.  Ye maybe back them off.  So I had this little spiel I says, ‘oh well my Uncle Jimmy was thinking of coming up to the area for a holiday and he knew other people around there and he was wanting to know, ye know, who was there and who wasn’t and er, did he know and I started, ye know naming names like ye know Richard and May and I says Alice, and Sarah.  He says, ‘hold on maybes you’ve got the, ye know maybe the wrong number’ and I says, ‘er well I thought maybe you were, ye know, a step-daughter of Sarah, ‘no not at all, she says, I’m her sister Joyce’ and I went, and she says, ‘who are you?’ I says, ‘well to tell you the truth if I tell you who I am, I’m your niece’ and ‘oh’.  So then she started to ask and then, ‘I said my mother was Alice’, ‘oh yes that was my sister’, and er.  So from then on we just started to chat and she was telling me about her family and I told her about mine and she says, ‘ye know, er,’ ye know didn’t sort of evolve that much ye know telling any details, ye know, how she was doing, that she was very, she was sick herself.