AGONY OF A MILLION MOTHERS

The Daily Star, 22nd August 1990. (Newspaper policy meant that Pat Basquill's name had to be changed in the article.)

by Carole Malone, Woman's Editor

IT TOOK the authorities just 60 seconds to steal Patricia Barker's baby. One woman held the mother down as she kicked and clawed. The other wrenched the nine-week-old girl from her arms.
That was 28 years ago and Patricia has not seen or heard of her baby since. It took just one horrifying minute to change the 16-year-old girl's life forever. And although there have been many desperate moments since, none has been as agonising as that cold April day.
"The nightmares just never go away," says Patricia. "Every day I wonder where she is and what she's doing.
"I fed and bathed that little girl for nine weeks after she was born. We were bonded. And in one minute they snatched her away from me - forever."
Patricia is one of two and a half million mothers in Britain who are desperately trying to trace the babies they claim were taken from them under duress. These are mums who by law have no rights and no claims on the children they lost.
This heartless ritual was called adoption. "I was 15 when I got pregnant," says Patricia, who was born and raised in a tiny mining village in Newcastle.

Sex

"My father was a staunch Ulster Protestant and as a family we never talked about sex. Even when I'd made love to my boyfriend I still never imagined I could get pregnant."
At 15, Patricia found herself abandoned by her family and thrown into an unmarried mother's home run by the Protestant Church.
This tragedy began seven months before, when the pretty young girl became pregnant by her 23-yearold boyfriend. "John thought I was 17," says Patricia.
The other thing the young Catholic lad didn't know was how much Patricia's father HATED all Catholics.
"I knew if he found out John was the father of my child he'd have made me have an abortion."
So for seven months Patricia kept her secret.
She says: "I knew if I left it long enough it would be too late to have an abortion.
"And I wanted that baby so much.
"John and I were so very much in love and he wanted to marry me."
But Patricia's father had heard a whisper in the village that she was seeing a Catholic.
And he started going through her mail.
Patricia came downstairs one morning to find him in the hall - a letter from her to John, taken from her handbag, in his hand.

Memory

"I knew by his face he'd read it," she says. "I'll never forget his words that day. He told me: 'You've acted like a bitch on heat. You've mated with an animal and no bastard offspring of a Roman Catholic is ever going to enter this family'.
"He was standing there, his eyes blazing, clutching a glass of whisky in his hand. I told him I was going to live with John and his mum after the baby was born.
"He went totally berserk and smashed a whisky tumbler into my face.
"My nose was badly broken.
"But he wouldn't take me to a doctor because he knew my pregnancy would be discovered."
Two days later Patricia and her mum were packed off to a remote cottage in the Northumbrian hills. She says: "I was seven months pregnant by then.

Home

"But I was still determined to get to John. What I didn't know was that my father had told him I'd had an abortion because I didn't want a Catholic baby."
Patricia tried to walk the 10 miles to John's home but collapsed, and was discovered by a passing milkman.
The next day her father arrived with the news that she was being taken to a home for unmarried mothers in Newcastle. She says now: "If I had known what was coming I would have taken an overdose on the spot.
"My father had arranged to have MY baby taken away from me.
It didn't matter to him that I loved John or that I wanted a family."
Patricia moved in to the home - a dank, dark building on the outskirts of the city.
"None of the staff actually called us whores," she says sadly. "But it was there in their eyes.
"Every time they looked at us, every time they spoke, it was like we were all on `the game'.
"The truth was that none of the girls in that home knew the first thing about sex.
"I shared a room with a 14-year-old girl who had been raped. Every night she'd wake up screaming, but there was no-one to comfort her - because everyone believed she'd asked for it.
"Four of us had to share a room and it was freezing cold. I'll never forget there was ice on the INSIDE of the windows."
All the time she was there Patricia was never told her baby was going to be taken away from her.
"I really thought it would be all right," she says. "I thought once it was born, my father would change his mind."
But she was wrong.
Baby Julia was born at 1.20 p.m. on February 5, 1962. She was the image of her father with fair hair and blue eyes.

Daft

Her 16-year-old mum haemorrhaged so badly that doctors believed she was going to die. Her father was told - but he never came.
Miraculously, after dozens of blood transfusions, the waif-like teenager pulled through.
"But I wish I hadn't," she says. "I once promised John's mum I would never do anything daft.
"But there were times during next few months that I wish to God I hadn't."
Patricia was allowed to keep her baby for nine weeks. In that time she fed her, clothed her, bathed her night and morning.
She even had to take her to hospital for injections. She says: "They told me the night before they took her away that they had found a couple who really wanted to adopt her.
"By then I knew I had no choice.
"My father had only once come to the home. That was just to tell me that if I didn't agree to the adoption he would have me put into an approved school and John would be sent to prison.
"I'll never forget that night as long as I live. I just sat at the edge of my bed holding Julia.
"The next morning two women walked into the room. I knew immediately
they had come to take her.
"I clung tighter - but they knew exactly what to do.
"They'd done it so many times before.
"One held me down while the other one ripped her out of my arms.

Away

"I was screaming and crying but they took her away without a word."
She says: "For years I've tried to find her, but the law stops me at every turn.
"I suffer tremendous guilt because I keep thinking I could have done something.
"On my rational days, I can convince myself that I was only 15, I had no money and nowhere to go.
"On the bad days I think why didn't I just cut and run, take my chances? We might have made it."

The cuddly panda she bought for baby Julia all those years ago - the only toy she was ever allowed to buy her child. (Picture: PETER WOLCOCK)

'YOU'RE TOO SINFUL TO KEEP YOUR BABY'

Heart-rending truth about the many mothers whose plight shames all britain.

• MORE than one million mothers in Britain are living with a secret agony - an agony their families cannever know anything about.

• THESE are the mums who were forced to give up their children at birth because they were illegitimate. Despite vigorous campaigns for changes in the law these women STILL have no rights to track down their lost children.

• TODAY the Daily Star talks to one woman whose baby was taken from her by force.

'One held me down while the other one snatched her from my arms'

Mums have a right to know

ADOPTION agencies refuse point-blank to tell mothers what has happened to their babies after they were taken way.
But the Post-Adoption Society is now campaigning for changes in laws which
deny mums the right to track down their children.
Counsellor Anne Fitsell says: "These laws were passed a long time ago when there was massive condemnation of unmarried mothers.
"The laws were to protect the child against the shame and the stigma of illegitimacy. But to a large degree that has changed now.
"What has NOT changed is the pain that these mothers go through trying to find their children. It is a human right for them to know whether their child is alive or dead.
"It's all many of them want to know, but they can't even be told that.
"Many of the adoption agencies who could provide this information are still operating in the Dark Ages.
"But there are thousands of mothers who go through hell trying to find their children.
"They may have other children of their own, but they can't ever erase the memory and the bond they formed with that first baby.
"The law has to change. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, there will be some political voice which will support these desperate women."

Copyright © Patricia Basquill, 2002 - 2008