'I never imagined that my birth mum was my neighbour. Did I unknowingly walk past her?' - Andrew Pierce
Andrew Pierce and his birth mother Margaret had their first photograph together in her care home
ANDREW PIERCE
Every Mother’s Day became harder as I got older.
Mum never suspected a thing.
I always sent her flowers, a card with a big gushing verse, and I always told her in no uncertain terms either on the telephone or face to face: ‘I love you Mum.’
But as I entered my thirties, I began to think about the other mother. Not Betty Pierce, my lovely Mum.
But the woman who gave birth to me alone, a single mother, in the harsh unforgiving social climate of 1961 Britain.
Even harsher if like my birth mother Margaret Connolly, you were an Irish roman catholic and your family were devout churchgoers.
Margaret’s life was made even more complicated by the fact she gave birth to me not as, I assumed, as a naïve teenager who had been told very little about the facts of life, but only weeks from her 35th birthday.
Old enough, you might say, to know better.
Andrew Pierce has shared a photo of Margaret as a young woman in his book Finding Margaret: Solving The Mystery Of My Birth Mother
ANDREW PIERCE
By the time I was heading to my fifties Mother’s Day was becoming unbearable.
I convinced myself, wrongly as it happens, that it was torture for her, even though I hoped and prayed that she had her own children who were the product of a happy marriage.
I had to let her know that I was okay; happy and healthy.
It was why, aged 48, I set out on the trip which resulted in my book Finding Margaret: Solving The Mystery Of My Birth Mother.
The search took me to Bristol where I was born, to the mother and babies’ home known locally as the house for fallen women.
It took me to Cheltenham where I lived for nearly three years in the Nazareth House orphanage run by a strict order of roman catholic nuns.
The building was long ago demolished its often unhappy memories and secrets buried in the rubble.
It took me to Birmingham where I discovered Margaret lived only miles from the Evening Mail - the newspaper where I worked in the 1980s.
As I was born in Bristol, I never thought for a moment that she was my neighbour. Did I pass her unknowingly in the street?
Then it was to Ireland to research her background in rural County Mayo and to look into the details of my apparent birth father. Or was he?
It was a roller coaster journey which did not have the conventional happy ending that I had hoped for.
Margaret never answered the questions she must have known that I would ask.
Andrew Pierce is pictured at Margaret’s house in County Mayo, Ireland
ANDREW PIERCE
But I have no regrets. It was the right thing to do.
I saw her. I know what she looks like. I now know where I get my high cheekbones from and my endless ability to witter on in conversation.
But, most importantly, to those who attack me in lurid terms on social media that I needlessly upset a woman who for 45 years had buried the existence of her secret son, I have a simple response.
She told me when we met I had ‘made her life’ as she was relieved to know I was happy.
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Andrew with his parents as a small child in 1963
ANDREW PIERCE
My original objective was for her to know that the son she gave away was happy and well-balanced.
I was also delighted to discover that she had indeed had a happy life with four children of her own in a long and happy marriage.
To others thinking of finding their birth parent, I have a simple answer. Do it.
It’s never too late. But don’t wait as long as I did.
I never told Betty who adopted me when I was three. But if I had told Mum, I would have made one thing crystal clear.
I will always be grateful to Margaret for having the courage to give me up for adoption.
Without her selfless generosity, I would never have been placed with my adopted mum who loved me to bits and made me the person I am today.