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Lahai-roi The Grange 42 Park Hill Moseley

Hi Alberta,
Thank you for your reply.
I appreciate your time and words.
I have gone into my profile and made a few changes, that should allow private messages now. Bit strange, after 60 yrs, knowing that somewhere out there my birth mother is alive.

Ian
 
Hi Nico,
Thank you for your input. I have a lot of thinking to do before deciding whether to use it or 'let sleeping dogs lie'.
I would hate to open the can of worms and bring disruption into someone's life.
It would be soooo much easier if I knew that my birth mum was out there reading this, and she contacted me first.

Ian
 
ian sinclair said:
Hi Nico,
Thank you for your input. I have a lot of thinking to do before deciding whether to use it or 'let sleeping dogs lie'.
I would hate to open the can of worms and bring disruption into someone's life.
It would be soooo much easier if I knew that my birth mum was out there reading this, and she contacted me first.

Ian
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I wouldn't put too much on here Ian in case she is reading it Ian. Use the private message service. No names. You just have to tread carefully and use an intermediary when you get closer. Mine was a reverend who agreed to do it for me they don't have to be professional intermediaries. Gro Gov can tell you if she is living or not or if she is in the UK. i.e. they told me she had left the UK and to look for a marriage. You can also use Ancestry and sites like them though they are expensive. We used the microfisches at the library, you can also use the library to get on these sites. I don't know if this number is still current but Adoption Support, 021 666 6014. You have her name you can look for certificates. I rang Norcap several times and then put the phone down. Over and over.Take it steady. They have advisors. My intermediary wrote a letter to mine and dropped my name in it in 'innocence' and put my details in. If someone else read it they would have no idea who I was. It took a while for the penny to drop for her o as I didn't here anything then when it did she panicked but eventually rang the inermediary.I have also a Miss Marple. Good Luck.Send me a provate message if you want but I don't know when I can reply. Family crisis. Best of Luck Nico.
 
With the help of a very nice intermediary I have now found my birth mum via one of her sisters. My b/mum was the oldest of 3 sisters and a brother. After giving birth to me she was sworn to secrecy, under threat, by her parents, never to tell a soul. My b/mom kept that secret, not even her brother or sisters knew.
She never married or had more children.
Again, thru the intermediary, I have sent my mother photos of me, my children, and my grandchildren. She has sent me photos of her, but contact will go no further.
After 60 yrs, my b/mom (now aged 77) still lives in fear of the threats from her parents (now deceased), and lives in fear of the secret (me!) getting known. For that reason she will not meet me, or have further contact.
 
Well that's sad and good (I think) she might come round. Some of my relatives did. Our BM's often can't go past a certain age mine couldn't envisage me being over 14. I was about 51 when we met. Your BM might not know that others knew.know. As my BM found out recently. Her brother always knew without her knowing he knew and kept the secret. Her aunties knew and 2 of her daughters knew. She dreaded telling them. But I can understand how your MB would feel and the way she was wrongly made to feel. I had a contact at NORCAP who is in the same boat as you. Her mum recognises her but not as her daughter and she won't meet her. Does your auntie noe know who you are Ian?
 
Hi Nico,
From what I've learned thru the intermediary, my aunt (sounds strange saying that) always had a gut feeling that her eldest sister (my b/mum) had had a child but was not sure until a few years ago. My b/mum never married but had a life long companion. When the companion died a few years ago she told my aunt that my b/mum had confided in her, but never another soul. The companion only told my aunt just before she died because she thought someone else ought to know, just in case just such a situation as this arose.

The intermediary was very careful in wording the initial letter and just mentioned that she was acting on behalf of a client and needed to know if her oldest sister was born on such and such a date. My aunt apparently replied straight away by phone, confirming the date of birth and enquiring if the 'client' was a child adopted many years ago.

Anyway, to the point, my aunt has seen my photos, I have seen a photo of her. She did want to meet up, but after talking to her older sister, she agreed to her wishes not have further contact.
It would be nice to meet even just once to say hello, tell my birth mum that I hold no grudges, and just find out a little of my identity and pre-adoption history, short as it is.
 
Ian, if what this lady is telling you is true that Jessie never married, the marriage I gave you privately must be for a lady of the same name born the same place a few years later.
however what we do know is that your mother was illegitimate herself which I would have thought would have given her more empathy with you.
Since her mother was unmarried the brothers and sisters must be the result of a later marriage.
If you have the sisters name contact me by PM.
I know how much this all means to you Ian.

I don't want to appear rude but these are questions I would be asking
Is the sister talking for Jessie without her knowledge, making what she thinks is the correct decision.
As a woman who is a few years short of Jessie and has given birth, if I had to part with this closest part of me that there could ever be I would
want to see them again no matter how many years went by.
Was Jessie herself afraid that the situation of her birth would be discovered, I can't see anyone of 77 being bothered what anyone else thought of my past, you get to the stage where life is too short.
Do you know that Jessie has been told that you hold no grudges'
perhaps it would be a good idea to hold back on your upbringing from the intermediary who could pass it to the sister.
I am pretty sure that all mothers who had to give away babies like to think that the babies went to 2 perfect people so that they do not feel guilty.

now this is rude but can you trust this intermediary, hopefully they are from a reputable social service with no charge taken, because there are
some real con artists out there in the genealogy world ever since we all became interested in finding our roots.
All facts told to anyone by an intermediary should be followed up with paperwork, records , certificates , letters etc.

Look forward to your PM. Alberta
 
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Ian, write to Alberta on her private message, and to me if you want to. I was thinking along the same lines as Alberta was, re your intermediary. You can also do a lot of research yourself as we did before we traced my BM and before she finally contacted me. As NORCAP advised me then, BM's blot things out forever then have a hard time remembering and remembering correctly. There are pieces if my BM's past she still can't or won't remember. My uncle and cousins filled us in a lot. They still do. If you aunties had children you will have cousins. Also if you have an adoption file there is a possibilty you could trace your BF as we did. I have 10 cousins on his side who are in regular contact with me You also have to give your BM time. And the aunty. It will rake up a plethora of feelings from the past for her and the aunty. I can't call my BM mum and she knows that, she doesn't like it but she has to accept it. I know it sounds strange saying aunty. Brother and sister is weired to me too. Your BM being illegitemate might make her feel even worse as my BM's mum was illegitemate. It affected her all her life he ended up leaving my BM and her siblings. I met a cousin who took 2 years to write to me before we traced fully my BM. Maybe your BM watches Who Do You Think You Are, watching Love Child then its repeat made me make a move. Maybe your mum still takes her older sister's advice. I didn't dwell on the no grudge bit with my BM but I let her just keep telling me what she wanted to tell me. As Alberta says you never forget, my BM and her aunt both 'lost 'their babies and they would sit and cry on our respective birthdays, together. So your BM will care very much about you whatever she says or people say, she says. Best Wishes
Nico.
 
Alberta and Nico, I have sent Alberta a private message, and copied it to Nico. Nico, although the message was addressed to Alberta, the invite with the link shared in the message would be to you as well.

Many thanks both.
Ian
 
Ian, I am sending you the complete details of your family, what you do with them after is entirely up to you,
myself I would follow some of them up because when dealing with any 3rd party you may not always be getting the right story, but that is up to you.
 
Thank you Alberta, I will look forward to receiving it. Just viewing it will give me some comfort in knowing who I am. Some serious thinking over quite a few cups o tea before deciding how to act on the info it contains.

Ian
 
My brother was also born at the Lahai Roi home in Moseley in May 1955.
She was told that they liked to place children with adoptive parents who had similar backgrounds to the birth mothers, and as my Mum was brought up in workhouses and children's homes, they told her that he had gone to a lovely couple who ran a kids home.
No records exist about him at Birmingham Social Services, who said that a lot of the Lahai Roi/Grange ones didn't as they were a private adoption agency..
 
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That's terrible MsSELse, another example of how devious and dubious these agencies were. I was lucky enough to get my files, as brief as they were from B'ham childrens services. As for the 'going to similar backgrounds ...... My mother was a 17 year old insurance Clerk. They gave me to a copper who hated kids, animals, and most social things, but needed them to gain promotion. It came to light many years later that he actually used his 'influence' and pulled strings to get me.
I don't know if this help and support group on facebook will be any help to you

  1. Adoption voices, UK & Ireland...........https://www.facebook.com/groups/adopteetracinghelp/


    ​
 
I don't go on Facebook so I can't get the link Ian but regarding your previous post I would need something stronger than tea. I have no fingernails left but it was worth it, in my case. My tracing and meeting my birth familyis still going 10 years on.
I think that Lahai Roi was good, in that it placed children with, as in my case wonderful parents and other adoptees that I came into contact with via Norcap.
Norcap is still going I believe but it no longer has an office due to the cuts. They would still be able to advise anyone. Lahia Roi got the 'similar backgrounds bit' wrong in my case too. They also pressurised my birth mother as recongnised by the registrar of that time to give me away as did her family. The young mothers were scorned by some members of the congregation of St Anne's church which is opposite the home and reprimanded for this by the then vicar's wife Mrs Yaxley to remember the teaching of Jesus Christ that the church is open to anyone. Miss Helmuth sadly comes over as very pious and she envoked that the young girls chastised themselves and stated their' wickedness" every morning followed by the stating of their 'happiness' to be there. It didn't really truly sink home to me till I watched an old Heartbeat episode and I thought, "these are just kids" and that is exactly what they were. I was given a copy of the Lahi Roi Accounts system so I could well understand the Policeman's 'paying for you' as they were very reliant on donations. I know of other adoptees who were taken in for dubious means. My birth father tried to get me back (that was a ploy to regain my birth mother's trust and affection) and was landed with a bill for our keep which my birth mother had already paid working for nothing as she was penniless. He never paid it though. I have a copy of Miss Helmuth's memoirs in which she writes that she noticed a vast amount of pregnant women committing suicide by drowning from which she received her 'calling' to form a mother and baby home. I really identify with TV's Call the Meidwife Series too.
MsSELse you should be able to get your adoption records from your the adoption HQ where your adoptive parents lived at the time you were adopted. That is where I located mine. Good luck.
 
I'm not the adoptee. Have exhausted every avenue we could over the last 20 years to find him, but to no avail..
 
I don't know whether adoption voices can help, but with so many birth mums and adoptees in one place that have all gone thru similar situations to yours, they might be of help. The search angel on there, Maggie, has a vast experience. Try them, just in case....
 
Hi Nico,
Your insights into Lahai roi are interesting, knowing how our mums might have been treated. Programmes like the Christmas 'call the midwife' do highlight things. I recently watched the film,'Philomena', and found it very moving but at the same time upsetting. So many birth Mums seem to want to find their 'lost' kids, but mine unfortunately didn't.
I've also read many experiences that adoptees have had brilliant, loving adoptive parents, and just as many from adoptees that had a bad experience, unfortunately I come into the latter category. I recently read an article in which an adoptee compared her life to sitting on a station platform with a birth train on one side and adoptive train on the other, and her ticket didn't allow her to belong on either. It rang a big bell with me. All thru my childhood years and a lot of my adult years my a/father made it clear to me that I was a waste of space not coming up to the expectations he would have had from a 'real' son, and now finding the birth train is also not the one I'm left on the platform with no feeling of belonging to birth or adoptive family, also quite lonely with no aunts, uncles, or other extended family.
 
MsSElse said:
I'm not the adoptee. Have exhausted every avenue we could over the last 20 years to find him, but to no avail..
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You are the birth mother. Norcap help anyone affected by adoption. When they were still producing their magazine when I began my search they had life experiences of successful and unsuccessful birth mothers and birth fathers. The law has recently changed so that birth mothers can now search for their children. There is the UK Birth Adoption Register which has a reasonable one off fee and they will also advise you about intermediarries who work I believe on your behalf. If Nicky Campbell & Co can find people you can. I am unsure of how the intermiadiary payment works I have a friend wanting to go down that road o find her brother she only just discovered she had. Her mum in 88 and wants to know if the baby she gave away is alright. We managed to trace the family with the information given ony to be told they are not the family. I should imagine your details are sketchy.
 
My birth mother gave up trying to find me, she rented a flat by Lahai Roi thinking she might see me in my pram. She waited 50 years for me to find her.
 
ian sinclair said:
Hi Nico,
Your insights into Lahai roi are interesting, knowing how our mums might have been treated. Programmes like the Christmas 'call the midwife' do highlight things. I recently watched the film,'Philomena', and found it very moving but at the same time upsetting. So many birth Mums seem to want to find their 'lost' kids, but mine unfortunately didn't.
I've also read many experiences that adoptees have had brilliant, loving adoptive parents, and just as many from adoptees that had a bad experience, unfortunately I come into the latter category. I recently read an article in which an adoptee compared her life to sitting on a station platform with a birth train on one side and adoptive train on the other, and her ticket didn't allow her to belong on either. It rang a big bell with me. All thru my childhood years and a lot of my adult years my a/father made it clear to me that I was a waste of space not coming up to the expectations he would have had from a 'real' son, and now finding the birth train is also not the one I'm left on the platform with no feeling of belonging to birth or adoptive family, also quite lonely with no aunts, uncles, or other extended family.
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Not just our mums Ian, all the mums. I made a friend along the way of a man who reseached for Philomena for the book he has since passed away but he helped me too.I am sorry about your train situation. I have a friend who feels the same as you do yet adopted with different circumstances. Firstly though mate, you ARE a real son it's Mr Plod who was/is not a real dad and secondly a biological child wouldn't come up to Mr Plod's expectancies either. My close relatives are similarly affected and one of the biological children was treated worse than their adoptive siblings because their father thought that his blood child should be better than them at everything.
I have a friend who's mum was adopted because her parents were childless and they needed help on the farm and she was treated like a drudge till she got married. Another whose wealthy childless parents adopted them because they didn't want their cousins to inherit!
Your mum could not have found you Ian, as the law prohibted them till now if it was a proper adoption. She is not perfect, none of us are. You will be raking up an old sore that she has been able to live with or has put away in a box. She has got to feel that she can deal with those emotions again. Another relative I had fell down the stairs on purpose to lose her baby because her husband treated her like a druge and every year she remembered them on their birthday. I said I wouldn't but I do compare my BM with my AM I am in tormoil at the moment as my siblings want to meet me. I have met 2 one I like one I don't. I correspond with 4 others, again 2 I like from what I know, one I am not so keem and one scares me. Whatever our circumstances we are who we are.
 
I'm his sister. My Mum was in there. I ran a business tracing birth families for over 10 years from the mid 90s after finding my Mum's birth family, but couldn't find my own brother! Thanks for the heads up on the law change. :)
 
I'll get there in the end MsSElse! The law changed maybe 2 years or more ago probably more. Do you know your brother's new name assuming his was changed? You are like my friend then. I told her to look at the Adoption register. You pay a small some to be put on it a one off, then if someone an adoptee knows they are adopted and looks on it, voila ( I suppose). Or am I teaching granny to suck eggs? I would also like to find my uncle who was adopted, no one knew about him I don't have his new name. Send me a PM if you's rather. Nico
 
Don't know his new name, but he was born on 5/5/55 (though I am aware that birth dates were often changed).
Pretty sure my Mum put her details on the adoption register years ago, but will check.
She's 82 now, and really just wanted to know he had a good life. She went on to marry his father and have another son with him, too..
 
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MsSElse said:
Don't know his new name, but he was born Kevin Ball on 5/5/55 (though I am aware that birth dates were often changed).
Pretty sure my Mum put her details on the adoption register years ago, but will check.
She's 82 now, and really just wanted to tell him what happened. She went on to marry his father and have another son with him, too..
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Tried to send you a Private Message but it wont. I wouldn't put personal details on the punlic domain. You can maybe send me one?
 
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