North East Post Adoption Service - Adoption Narratives - Maureen
ye just don’t know what to say.
Interviewer Do you want to stop for a minute?
Yes.
Tape turned off – tape turned back on after a break when Maureen felt more able to continue with her story.
Yes, the first phone call, that was just a crying match, you just didn’t really know what to say and, I, er, don’t know, how to explain how I felt because you had every single emotion running through your body. There was, I think, delight, there was, I mean there was really ecstasy, erm, there were nerves but there was also anger there. The anger, ye know, the lost years, erm, because whenever I found out eventually the person who had adopted me knew damn well I had a brother, knew all about him and never once said that they knew the family ye know. Er so I mean, and I had missed my mother by a year and ten months, ye know er. As I say, the emotions, if somebody had said to me, ‘Maureen you have won a million pounds or whatever, I wouldn’t have felt a tenth of the emotions definitely, ye know, especially when you knew that you were wanted. It was, it was the wanting because er, even though I had an er, ye know my own family over in Ireland, don’t take me wrong I love them to bits I still felt lonely ye know. [long pause] Erm, I think it was the not being wanted so er as I say you he may never had been found and everybody who give me a hand couldn’t thank them enough. [Maureen upset] Sorry
Tape off again/ end of tape so some talk missing
So, and I told him, I says, ‘I’ll jump on ye ……..’ and I says, ‘no I’ll just shake your hand and say, ‘welcome to Ireland’. So we head off anyway he was coming in the January, and I spied him. I seen him, I says, as soon as I seen him I knew even though we had, had photographs but they were photographs of whenever, ye know, they weren’t recent photographs. Cause he had put photographs even on an Adams website, ye know, and I was coming on to my television but they were very small and I couldn’t really get to see them at all but er as soon as he come up I knew. I knew him. Course I run up to him and went, ‘hooo,’. I said, ‘told you I would jump on you!’ Then of course we were just, it was just marvellous seeing him and holding him and he was over for the four weeks and most of the time we just sat on the sofa and held on to each other without speaking ye know. There were just times I couldn’t take it in. I was saying, ‘I am actually holding him, my brother’, ye know. Er, and of course everybody that I knew, took him down to what we call the …….. Corner. We used to go down every Saturday and Sunday night to dance and we knew a lot of people there and he was introduced to everybody and everybody knew, ye know, the story. A lot of them knew, as I say, I told them outright that I was adopted and that was when I found out that my mother always told everybody that she knew that she had a daughter and she never, ye know, she never hid the fact that I was there. And then she was asking him, my brother, to look for me all those years. And I hadn’t even known that he existed. I could have been told, could have been told could have maybe been different ye know, but er, as I say he was looking from, I think, since twelve or fourteen years of age looking for us
Interviewer Do you want to stop for a minute?
Yes.
Tape turned off – tape turned back on after a break when Maureen felt more able to continue with her story.
Yes, the first phone call, that was just a crying match, you just didn’t really know what to say and, I, er, don’t know, how to explain how I felt because you had every single emotion running through your body. There was, I think, delight, there was, I mean there was really ecstasy, erm, there were nerves but there was also anger there. The anger, ye know, the lost years, erm, because whenever I found out eventually the person who had adopted me knew damn well I had a brother, knew all about him and never once said that they knew the family ye know. Er so I mean, and I had missed my mother by a year and ten months, ye know er. As I say, the emotions, if somebody had said to me, ‘Maureen you have won a million pounds or whatever, I wouldn’t have felt a tenth of the emotions definitely, ye know, especially when you knew that you were wanted. It was, it was the wanting because er, even though I had an er, ye know my own family over in Ireland, don’t take me wrong I love them to bits I still felt lonely ye know. [long pause] Erm, I think it was the not being wanted so er as I say you he may never had been found and everybody who give me a hand couldn’t thank them enough. [Maureen upset] Sorry
Tape off again/ end of tape so some talk missing
So, and I told him, I says, ‘I’ll jump on ye ……..’ and I says, ‘no I’ll just shake your hand and say, ‘welcome to Ireland’. So we head off anyway he was coming in the January, and I spied him. I seen him, I says, as soon as I seen him I knew even though we had, had photographs but they were photographs of whenever, ye know, they weren’t recent photographs. Cause he had put photographs even on an Adams website, ye know, and I was coming on to my television but they were very small and I couldn’t really get to see them at all but er as soon as he come up I knew. I knew him. Course I run up to him and went, ‘hooo,’. I said, ‘told you I would jump on you!’ Then of course we were just, it was just marvellous seeing him and holding him and he was over for the four weeks and most of the time we just sat on the sofa and held on to each other without speaking ye know. There were just times I couldn’t take it in. I was saying, ‘I am actually holding him, my brother’, ye know. Er, and of course everybody that I knew, took him down to what we call the …….. Corner. We used to go down every Saturday and Sunday night to dance and we knew a lot of people there and he was introduced to everybody and everybody knew, ye know, the story. A lot of them knew, as I say, I told them outright that I was adopted and that was when I found out that my mother always told everybody that she knew that she had a daughter and she never, ye know, she never hid the fact that I was there. And then she was asking him, my brother, to look for me all those years. And I hadn’t even known that he existed. I could have been told, could have been told could have maybe been different ye know, but er, as I say he was looking from, I think, since twelve or fourteen years of age looking for us
