The UK Parliament's House of Commons and House of Lords Joint Committee on Human Rights Inquiry Report: The Violation of Family Life: Adoption of Children of Unmarried Women 1949–1976. Published 15 July 2022. 

This report and the work of the Joint Committee have significance for me because this inquiry is at long last about the jurisdiction that determined my fate. There have been inquiries and parliamentary apologies in other counties, including Australia. But my mothers are both dead. There is still no apology and no sign of meaningful adoption law reform. I wrote to the Joint Committee in response to a series of questions they posed. I no longer have a copy of the questions, but I think you will get the gist of them from my replies.

Please do not forget the struggles of the adopting parents such as mine, James Lindon and Grace Pryor. I am not sure I can think all that highly of them; love them as I did as a child of the folk I was brought up to see as parents. But heck, wrong as their approach was they did their best as parents and the system could (a) have done a heck of a lot better in support for them and (b) owes them an apology for what it knew about the complexities of raising an adopted child and failed to tell them.

I cannot tell you much about my mother's experiences except to say that the pain of her separation from her child lived with her forever. You will have heard, no doubt from many of the thousands of women who had their bairns taken from them through the adoption practices of the 50s, 60s and 70s. Count my mother, Nancy, amongst their legion.

As for me, I can confirm that I match the general characteristics of the adopted child; both attributes and disabilities.

I thought I ought add two light stories I tell about my adoption just as signals for the hurt that can come from the fiction of; you are now someone other than who you were born as.

The first is that I had a frequent, rich fantasy as, I think about an eight to eleven year old. It was simple. Whenever formally beaten as punishment by my adopting father or sent to my bedroom without food (and these were frequent events) I saved myself through the knowledge that these people were not my real parents. No, the truth I held onto desperately was that my real mother was a rich American Heiress (the caps were important).

The second is a recollection of a pleasant family discussion about heritage. You know, you have your grandfather's nose, that sort of thing. My adopting parents and my brothers were discussing faces and eyes. You look like your father's brother and so on. But also blue eyes all round. So when I asked "Mummy, who do I look like?" all I saw on my mother's face was panic. And she gave an answer that gave the lie to the fiction. "Otto", she said. Yes, our pet dog was the only other creature other than I in the room with brown eyes. To this day, I still feel the pain of that moment for both myself and Grace Pryor. And I will love Otto forever.

I finally managed to access my birth records and start learning about what the State knew about the impacts of adoption when I was in my late 40s. Social Workers had catalogued the likely impacts on my adopting parents prior to my birth. Yet nothing by way of advice or support was ever offered to them as they struggled to come to terms with a child, me, as an adoptee. I was just not wired the way they (and the children they successfully bore after I was adopted) were. The pain in my adopting mother's eyes as I saw herself judge herself as failing as I consistently failed to be the son she had imagined will live with me forever.

My anger about a State that already knew this could occur and yet remained silent knows no bounds.

As for me and my life, the only 'support' I ever received as I grappled with being the ungrateful son of an adopting family who had given me security, education and safety, but sadly, not the sense of identity and being I still struggle to find; well, that was a farcical meeting with a social worker in Australia when my court records were released and I HAD to be counselled before getting to see them. I will never forget her words as she opened the envelope and perused the contents before handing them to me: "they are hiding the truth from you" she hissed.

Well, no. The Court never knew the truth. This person was meant by the State to support me, not wound me further. I have never been inclined to trust social workers since.

The Victorian Adoption Network for Information and Self Help (VANISH Inc) in Victoria, Australia will happily outline to you the many, many forms of support mothers and children and their families ought have access to. Much of this is to do with information and ready access to truth. I am sure witnesses more familiar with UK policies and practice have told you much of practical value about this. Mental health, though, is an oft ignored aspect of the support we need. Professional practitioners, such as GPs, psychiatrists, psychologists and other counsellors endeavouring to help people in crisis do not know enough about adoption - it is just not covered in their training and professional development - and so tragically miss the signs that this ought be a considered part of the conversation and treatment. Overwhelmingly though, the support most needed is acknowledgement, apology and a clear commitment by the State that it will never, ever, ever allow what was done to us happen again.

Consent? Hah! I was born on 16 August 1955 at a private maternity hospital in Gosport. My mother, Eva Margaret Nancy Lindsay of Dundee, Fife, Scotland (State Registered Nurse) - and a resident of New Zealand - did not get to see or hold me after I was born. Instead, she spent several miserable weeks at 47 Prideaux-Brune Ave, Bridgemary, Gosport PO13 0UE until social workers cleared her of being of sound mind and so let her return to Scotland, whereupon Nancy, as she was called, enlisted in the British Army as a Lieutenant Nurse provided the Army would post her as far away from Britain as possible.

Prior to my birth, Nancy was a Maternity Nurse Educator in New Zealand. Her professional life would was certain to be over as soon as she became a single mother. She had no employment prospects beyond that. Her father, wanted to protect his family's reputation and was concerned about impacts on his pharmacy practice. Her Church taught she could not be a single parent. The State enthusiastically promoted adoption and offered no other support or solutions. Nancy saw no other option. You may say that her choice was then given freely. But as evidence for the deep knowledge that I have that this was not so is the simple fact that the PIN on every credit card Nancy ever had was my birthdate. The one secret burned into her heart she knew no one else could ever know.

So. Consent? No. My mother was coerced and it troubled her throughout her life.

My mother and my adopting mother were maternity nurses. They did not know each other. However, my adopting mother had her colleague, one Margaret Pettigrew, keep an eye out for a likely prospect for adoption, since she and her mother, also a Margaret Pettigrew (she trained both her daughter and Grace Pryor), ran a Private Maternity Hospital in Gosport. The two Pettigrews ran a private adoption service. They mixed and matched unborn babies and their soon-to-be mothers with the physical and social attributes of middle class couples desirous of a child. Hence Nancy denied sight or touch of me and a Grace Pryor who was given a baby boy WEEKS before Nancy finally 'consented' to my adoption. In that transaction I recognise myself as a commodity.

My father was Michael James Gallagher, resident of Blacktown, Sydney, NSW Australia. He and Nancy conceived me on a Russian cruise ship from Naples on its way to Southhampton. I know this because Nancy knew this and because I have found my brothers and sisters and confirmed the story. But Michael Gallagher's name does not appear on my birth certificate. Why? Because the Pettigrews and the State did not want a father acknowledged. An unknown father meant that the lie of identity that adoption represents was more likely to hold. So Michael Gallagher probably never knew I had been conceived or born. Nancy wrote a letter to him whilst she was in the care of the Pettigrews, saying that she had had his child but that she wanted no further contact with him. I know of Michael Gallagher through his other sons and daughters. That he would have reached out to Nancy had he known I have no doubt. I think it far more likely that the Pettigrews failed to send the letter on behalf of Nancy.

Margaret Pettigrew the younger actually delivered me and then became my Godmother. Throughout my childhood she was a magical, wonderful person who wrote to me (we rarely saw each other) with words of wisdom about growing up, responsibility and future opportunity. In my 40s I wrote to Margaret to thank her for her support as my Godmother and to tell her I was going to search for my mother, asking if she knew anything that could aid that search. She wrote in reply that what I proposed to do was deeply wrong and told me that our relationship was over. I was hurt at the time she did this. Now, as  Chair of VANISH, where I have heard the testimony of just so many folk affected by the past practices of adoption, I believe my Godmother's repudiation of me was nothing short of betrayal.

I am not aware of recent developments in the UK. However, operations such as that run by the Pettigrews were unconscionable in the 50s and, hopefully are not operating today. IF the private maternity hospital in Gosport is still in operation, please make sure they are held accountable for their horrible past actions. And if it is still arranging adoptions; sack them from that role.

I am happy for my testimony and identity to be published. I confirm that I consent to the detail and names of people I have provided being disclosed.