A social history project
A forthcoming book will tell the collected tales from mothers and their children whose lives have been impacted by the mother and baby homes in the UK.
A few years ago I started a MFA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University London, researching and writing a girl to teen memoir. In turn this lead me to speaking with other women and adult adoptees, and finding out about the need for an adoption apology. Since then I’ve lobbied for that apology using my political network – I’m a Kent County Councillor (Labour). I’ll continue to do all I can to make this much needed apology a reality.
In January 2024 the BBC invited me on to Sunday Politics South East, which I agreed to do if we discussed the issue of forced adoptions. The 10 minute segment featured Veronica Smith from Seaford who was forced to give up her daughter in the 1960s and is now calling on the government to make an official apology.
I then explained some of what happened to me in 1978 and talked about my conversations with women and adult adoptees. These collected stories will be the foundation for the book which, I hope will bring this ‘hidden’ social scandal out from the shadows.
My memoir, Rattlechops details my time in a Catholic mother and baby home in Coleshill, Birmingham. Just as important is the preceding period at home and at school, where sex education is scant but the pressures to ‘do it’ are all around. These themes appear in conversations I’ve had with other women and I hope to document more stories with different angles in my next book. In the meantime, I have posted a chapter from Rattlechops to give a flavour of my Stoke-on -Trent in the 1970s.
If you were in a mother and baby home or you are the child of someone who was in a home and you would like to talk about your experience, I’d love to hear from you.
Likewise, if you have information on this topic that you believe will be of interest, don’t hesitate to contact me.
If you’d prefer to chat:
07984 532212
4 Royal Road,
Ramsgate, Kent. CT11 9LE