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2865 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

And now, there she is, being interviewed on TV.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

The newsreader tells us that the midwives at the hospital give the baby a name, Heather.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

For years, we focus on that day, that grassy verge, the baby.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

Over time, the story of the Suffolk foundling is rubbed so smooth by years of retelling, I can no longer get a firm grip on it.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

And every so often, stories about babies being abandoned crop up.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

A woman has been arrested after a newborn baby was found dead in a plastic bag in London last week.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

Each time it happens I think of that Suffolk baby.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

What happened to her?

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

And occasionally, when I search online for child abandonment, I find there's very little to explain what happens to the babies who are left.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

And there's even less about their mothers.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

I've spent decades as a radio producer researching true stories, and yet after all this time, I know no more about the Suffolk baby than I did as a child.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

So I make a decision to go back, back to the Suffolk of 1987, to try and answer the questions that have gnawed at me for years.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

What happened to that baby?

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

What does it do to you to know that you were left abandoned?

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

And perhaps even more intriguing for me are the questions about her mother.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

Who would carry a beautiful, healthy baby girl to a lonely country lane and just dump her there in a plastic bag?

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

When I was eight, it had felt like a beguiling whodunit.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

Later, I'd imagined a more nuanced story of trauma and loss.

Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
On the verge | Foundling Ep 1

But what I've uncovered over the last year is a story which is much more troubling than anything we dreamt up as children.