On the verge | Foundling Ep 1
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What is the story behind the abandoned baby found in Suffolk?
Tortoise Investigates.
You wouldn't just drop it off in the middle of the countryside. And hope for the best.
There's obviously something fishy about the story. So the story didn't ring true, but we couldn't quite work out why for ages.
Yeah, it didn't really wash.
I'm sitting round a table with my sisters. We're drinking tea and going over a memory from when we were kids. It's something we've been through so many times over the years.
We were like, why did you stop? Because she was driving. We said, what made you stop to look what it was? Because she said it was in a plastic bag.
You see, this is a story my family can never quite put to rest. Maybe every family has one of these. It's that thing that always comes up when you're together. Someone mentions a name, a place or a particular memory and there you all go again. The story gets told and retold, details are debated, bits get embellished, and over time, it becomes family folklore. We talk about it over the years, and we're like, it's so weird, and we used to guess where it was on that road. But the thing is, this isn't our story. It belongs to someone else.
The six-pound, three-and-a-half-ounce baby is doing well in hospital after being dumped in an orange and white plastic bag around mid-morning yesterday.
A baby girl who appears from nowhere on Tuesday the 6th of October, 1987, lying on a patch of damp grass beside a remote country lane in Suffolk.
She was wearing a nappy and this oversized Adams Make thermal vest.
The vest is white, sleeveless and much too big for her. She's lying half-wrapped in a Sainsbury's supermarket bag, like a makeshift plastic cradle. Late that morning, a passing driver spots the baby. She's picked up, wrapped in a jumper and taken to hospital. A small miracle.
For years, I've thought about that day and wondered about the baby and the mother who left her there. Because right from the start, there were questions.
How did it get there? How did it get there into this place in the middle of the fields in the middle of nowhere?
We lived nearby. I was just eight at the time. But even at that young age, we knew that this real-life mystery happening on our doorstep was a big deal. I can still remember where I was when I was told about the abandoned baby. I can see myself now. I'm walking out of the black school gates. The sun's on my face. Our nanny's come to pick me up and she's standing there in the car park. You won't believe what happened today, she says. And what she recounts, the lane, the baby, the passing driver, it feels like a scene from a film. Except it's a film that, to this day, my sisters and I still can't quite make sense of.
When we got older, we were like, she found a baby?
How do family memories shape the narrative of abandonment?
She what? How do you find a baby? We'd talk about it occasionally.
That evening, we watch the six o'clock Anglian news. Our big boxy telly lived on a tall chest of drawers and I had to crane my neck a bit to see it.
When you saw the baby, I mean, what did it look like?
Very happy. It was gurgling, smiling.
No one knows how the baby came to be there, but we feel like detectives because we're close to this story. We actually know the woman who found the baby. She's our friend's nanny. And now, there she is, being interviewed on TV.
Its feet and hands were bluish, but it was perfectly happy. Very sweet.
So what did you do after you got into the car?
Well, I dropped my jumper around it by this point because I knew that you had to keep babies, you know, keep them warm. Drove all the way down the road again just to turn around and sort of sped back and thought the gardener's going to be at home. He'll know what to do because I didn't know where to go next.
The newsreader tells us that the midwives at the hospital give the baby a name, Heather. For years, we focus on that day, that grassy verge, the baby. 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.
A newborn believed to have been delivered in the last 24 hours has been abandoned outside South Tuggeranong Fire Station in Canberra.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the story behind the abandoned baby found in Suffolk?
0:04–3:33
2
How do family memories shape the narrative of abandonment?
3:33–7:23
3
What led to the investigation of the abandoned baby case?
7:23–11:33
4
What challenges did the police face in solving the case?
11:33–16:01
5
How did Jess's upbringing influence her search for identity?
16:01–19:32
6
What emotions did Jess experience upon learning her origin story?
19:32–24:01
7
What clues did Jess uncover about her birth parents?
24:01–28:24
8
How does Jess's journey reflect on the broader issues of abandonment?
28:24–39:12