Podcast Appearances
You're, like, rotten.
You've come from someone that can discard a baby and have no thoughts or feelings about that.
As a teenager, Jess says she tells her friends that she was found and they tell their friends.
And the story sort of takes on a life of its own.
But slowly that changes, and by the time she's in her early 20s, she's intrigued by the mystery of her beginning.
From the very first time I call her, Jess is really open with me because, let's be honest, a total stranger calling you up and telling you that they're obsessed with your origin story must be a bit weird.
But she seemed to get it, why the mystery of who she is and the questions around it are in some way bigger than just her.
And so she's happy to humour me and let me play Holmes to her Sherlock.
But when I first meet her, there really isn't all that much that she can tell me.
In the UK, all adopted children have the right to find out where they come from.
It's been enshrined in law since the mid-70s.
The UN also recognises that children have a right to an identity, to know as far as possible who their parents are.
But if you start out as a foundling, a lone baby with no backstory, this basic right is denied.
There's no official record for foundlings to uncover.
No paper trail.
When she's 22, Jess decides she wants to see the place where she was found.
So she sets off with a friend, armed with those newspaper cuttings.
She tells me she remembers feeling intrigue, but also dread, because until now, it's all felt very abstract.
But by going to the spot where she was left, she's hoping she might glimpse some clue, something that might explain why she was abandoned.