Love Child

Description

Updated edition of this moving memoir of one woman's search for her birth mother, with a fascinating history of adoption in the UK weaved throughout Adoption is one of the great, untold stories of our recent past. It is a truly epic tale of loss, guilt, identity, family feuds, reunion and redemption. It is a subject, until very recently, surrounded by secrecy and taboos.This is the heart-warming true story of a little girl's adoption in the 1950s and her search, nearly forty years later, for her birth mother. When mother and daughter meet, Sue thinks she has finally reached the end of her journey. Then Sue discovers she wasn't the only baby her mother gave away ...Weaved throughout is the vivid, emotional history of adoption in the UK. Drawing on a wide range of intimate personal experiences, it outlines the forces that shaped 20th century adoption practice, from baby-farming, the stigma of illegitimacy, incest and the bastardy laws, to children taken by force, the Magdalene laundries, mass emigration schemes without parental consent, to modern day adoption practices, buying babies from abroad, sperm donor fathers and tearful reunions on Trisha.

Sue Elliot is a television executive and speechwriter, whose writing appears regularly in national newspapers such as The Guardian. She has a special interest in social policy and adoption, and has sat on adoption boards.

This true story of loss, guilt, identity, family feuds, reunion and redemption is one that will move all who read it * The Sun * a compelling and enlightening read * Junior * Enthralling and informative * Woman and Home * A book of family secrets, thwarted love and unexpected reunions ... A marvellous book. -- Bernard Cornwell