General Chat

When they met Ann told her children that she loved her husband too.
It seems then that she made sure that they were safe by getting them away from him. She could however have left him instead and stayed with her children. I think that is why she was so ashamed.


No fathers name on his birth cert. so seems that Ann was not married at the time. Could therefore only have fathers name on cert. if he was with her to reg. birth (or did it himself).

Adrian and Sharron were so alike that I think that they looked like full sibs.
I reckon that the husband was PROBABLY the father to both of them.


Missed the beginning, but hope that I have managed to record the complete prog. If so, will listen out for mention of other brother.

they didnt mention the other brother

wonder if they found him and he didnt want anything to do with them

Just watched the story and wondered why the second son was not mentioned,
Adrian must have known he had a brother being 6 when adopted.

to be fair,it was not easy for a woman with children to leave an abusive husband/partner in the 60s,no benefits then.how would they live?i think she did the right thing by getting them adopted.

But she didn't get both children away from the bloke she was living with at the time.

Adrian was put in hospital by the bloke she was living with and was taken into care.

Edit. but there was National Assistance for women on there own with children.

And they weren't adopted.

Only Adrian when he was 16 yrs old.

yes sorry,they were given away and she didnt sigh the adoption papers.

i didnt know that woman got assistance ,i was only young in the 60s

thought they said Adrian was 6 not 16.my hearing must be worse than i thought.

anyway a strange story.

It 'may' have been best to have the children fostered/adopted if she genuinely felt she couldn't look after them by herself if she divorced....but to then go with the man who had effectively lost you your children to Aus and stay with him regardless? I don't understand that...but then I never understand why women stay with violent men.

I am surprised about comments ref National Assistance. I am not saying you are wrong, just that I do not remember mothers coping with babies on their own in those days without family support or a very good job. It seems a recent phenomenon that mothers with no obvious means of support can have several children and a house and no job without a partner's involvement.

I just accepted the tears as genuine on all sides last night and thought their new relationship was moving. They seem to have all gained from meeting up and am sure we all wish them the best for the future. Lots of questions I agree - but private ones.

Having worked with women who had abusive husband/partners, I don't it's something you can comprehend, unless you have been in the situation, or witnesses it first hand, it is too complex, often the abuser starts off by being the perfect gentleman, and when the abuse starts, the woman is made to believe it is her fault, there is of course the absolute fear. Having seen the effect of this I now couldn't judge how it affects a persons ability to get out of the situation, only to say that the women I worked with, I believe loved there children.

As for a woman bringing up children, having left her husband in the 60's there wasn't much help at all.

I agree with John's comments.

As the child of a mother who was widowed in the early 1950's and left with four children I agree there WAS National Assistance but it came nowhere near providing what benefits do these days.
There was a day when my desperate mother took my two younger sisters (my older brother and I were at school) to the NA office, was refused help, so she went to walk away and leave my sisters in the office saying she couldn't feed them. In the end they gave her a shilling!!
I think also people were not so aware of benefits then, and they also still made people think charity/workhouse.

Yes maybe private ones but then why make the whole thing and search public viewing?

Like others whenever I watch this show it always leaves me with a million questions.

Like already asked what happened to the other brother? Maybe he too had been adopted and was not interested. When Sharon/Amanda was born Adrian was only 4 yrs old so he was still in his Mothers care, as he said he knew there was a sister and he still with his mother for 2 years after her birth. She may of loved her children and felt unable to let go, but she put a man before them, probably thats why I was unable to shed a tear. However if her children can find it in their hearts to forgive her then that is wonderful, however we will never know as that part of the story will never been told, least by this programe anyhow. ;-)

JohnLFM.

Well I can assure you I am NOT WRONG about the National Assistance that mother's could claim if they had children and they were left on there own to bring up the children.

And Why am I NOT surprised you are insinuating I could be wrong about
NA.

You were one of the lucky ones to be brought up with 2 parents.

Well I wasn't my mother kicked my father out of the house when I was about 9yrs old only cos she didn't want a man telling her what she should be doing during the day while he was working as a postman.

He was very Victorian in his attitude,women worked in the house and men went to work to earn the money.

She didn't have any family at all as she had been adopted and her adoptive parents had both died before I was born.

And JLFM we aren't talking about in the last 20/30 or 40 yrs we are talking back in the 60's when a lot of men were abusive to women and nothing was done by the police as back before the 1990's it was called a Domestic and the man could beat a woman to nearly deaths door and still nothing was done by the law.

Well you wouldn't remember back then as you are just a bit younger than me.

Back in the early 60,s I found myself on my own with a young baby.

I received National Assistance of £6-10s. a week. My bedsit rent was £3. My abusive ex was ordered to pay 17s-6d but never ever paid so you went without it.

When my son was 2yrs old I got a full time job and he went to a council nursery at a shilling a day. He was always first in and last out.

It was hard but we managed, just..

Sue. I wasn't insinuating or saying you were wrong about NA. Quite the opposite. But not surprised you want to kick off about it.

I think other posters have clarified what the situation was and explained why one of the lucky ones with two parents (sic) cannot remember NA in 1960's.

im sorry if i may have caused an argument here,but i did not know that abused woman got benefits if they left the home in the 60s.

i was not born until 63 but i think John is a few yrs older than me,so he should remember.

but to be fair i think John was only giving his opinion of the programme like all of us.

:-)

Suzanne................I didn't know about benefits for mothers on their own then either and I was born in the early fifties.

I don't think the age we are is a factor in our knowledge, or lack of, as much as our life experience.

Our family were lucky enough to live just above the poverty line and were self sufficient to a large degree.................and never had to ask for help.

I think being on benefits at that time was something that many people would have felt ashamed about. Certainly my sister who is five years younger remembers being made to feel ashamed and 'different' because she had free school meals.

If we hadn't been a family on National Assistance I doubt I would have known about it, as I was unaware of anybody else in the same position.

JohnLovesFletcherofMadeley Report 30 Jul 2013 10:08
I am surprised about comments ref National Assistance. I am not saying you are wrong, just that I do not remember mothers coping with babies on their own in those days without family support or a very good job.

John above is what you posted about NA.

If you can't remember then all well and good but please do not say I am kicking off over me mentioning National Assistance

I am a bit older than you and we had to make do with hand me downs.

Yes I know most of us did that but when I had no shoes to go to school in I had to wear my older sister's Civil Defence shoes and by was I laughed at for having to wear them.

Also was ashamed as we had to have free school meals even in the holidays and everyone knew where you were going if you headed down to the school hall during the holidays.

One day we had only 1 egg and 5 slices of bread to eat so my older sister made eggy bread to make the egg go further and there was rent to pay plus leccy gas had to be paid through meters plus clothes took all the money up from the NA.

My mother would do any job to get some money into the house to put food on the table including cleaning the wealthy peoples houses at a shiling a day
and was an usherette at night time which was only 3 nights a week.

Please don't assume that most woman left with children had family/friends or a very good job because they didn't.

That is my last word on the National Assitance.

I read over on the GR FB page that Adrian's son had tweeted after the show and he said that Ann had 7 children in total and all had met and get on like a house on fire.

crikey!!! Talk about twists and turns. Wonder what happened to the rest? Glad they got on though. no wonder she didnt want to tell her story on camera!

Florence
in the hebrides.

I am pleased it worked out well for them, whatever happened in the past should stay there and I wish all of them a very happy future :-D