David Batty

In that period of time, it's estimated that there were around 180, 185,000 babies, I think just in England, who were forcibly removed from their mothers.

An expert called Professor Michael Lambert has done a lot of research on this.

I think he's put estimates for the whole of the UK to be, I think, somewhere between around sort of 215,000 and maybe even 500,000.

So in the adoption records, there is mention of my maternal grandparents wanting to adopt me.

And the reverend tells them, well, you know, this would be a terrible thing because that would not be a normal family.

It would be an artificial setup.

And the child would probably end up becoming a juvenile delinquent.

That's in the note.

It made it increasingly difficult because I had no

idea of how to handle it the rawness and acuteness of her trauma and her anger and her unhappiness and that really came to dominate our conversations and you know she mentioned that she'd sort of written this note that she tucked into my baby clothes when she gave handed me over to the moral welfare officer and of course that hadn't been given to me because it would have been removed

It was really this outpouring of grief that she had.

And I just really didn't know what to do.

I didn't really have a very clear understanding of my own trauma.

So to then be put in this position of almost feeling responsible for dealing with her trauma was...

really overwhelming.

And the turning point was this dinner that we had at a restaurant.

And I can't really remember the circumstances or the context of me mentioning the term birth mother.

She had this really visceral reaction where she just shouted, like, I hate that term.

I wasn't a broodmare.

But it was like the dam finally broke and all the depth of that trauma came out.