Adopted – Me?

A short walk along the road took me to the verger’s cottage. I cautiously tapped on the door, and it opened to a friendly man of mature age. “Come in,” he said. “How can I help you?” Despite being a complete stranger, I was shown into a tiny front parlour. He called his wife, who was hanging out their washing in the back garden, to come and meet me. I explained that I was looking to trace a Marjorie Thompson as part of a search into my family tree. They were both exceedingly kind and spent a long time ruminating about the various families that had lived in the village over the last several decades, but they could not recall anyone by the name of Thompson. Exhausted of ideas, the verger's wife knocked on the wall intervening with the next cottage and called her sister to come round for a chat. I explained my search, and once again the history of the village was explored over cups of tea as these three people recalled memories further back in time. Suddenly, with a shout, the wife’s sister recalled a young woman who lived, for a short time, in the cottage opposite with her aunt and uncle, many years ago, perhaps even before the Second World War. Her name was Marjorie Thompson. I was overjoyed and suddenly dismayed at the thought that I was so close to possibly finding my natural mother. They all pointed across the road outside the window, and the sister who had remembered my mother said, “That’s Tempsford, the cottage you are looking for.” The verger went on to say that Marjorie Thompson had married Peter Hall and now lived at Shenton Hall in the next village, called Shenton, a few miles to the west. I was so amazed that my two-day journey to the Midlands had bought forth this much information that I quickly thanked the verger, his wife, and his wife’s sister profusely and beat a hasty retreat to prevent disclosing the privacy of the situation about my mother any further. When I got outside, I looked for the Tempsford sign but could not see it on the gate opposite. But it didn’t matter. I was getting very close, and the situation was getting more exciting but very scary. I had experienced another stroke of luck! I turned the car around and set off in the direction of the village of Shenton. I drove through the most beautiful wooded countryside segregated by farmland and then along a very straight road between flat, green fields, passing a sign directing me to the site of the Battle of Bosworth. I saw the various flags for Henry Tudor and King Richard III flying at the top of Ambion Hill, and there was a sign at the next T junction saying “This memorial stone is the spot where it is said Richard III was killed”. This location has been subsequently challenged by historians and the memorial stone moved. Finally arriving in the village of Shenton, I pulled up by the side of another lovely medieval church and went inside. On the floor, much to my amazement, were an assortment of organ parts; the pipes, keyboards, wooden panels, and everything had been stripped out to be reassembled. I asked the man kneeling on the floor if he could direct me to Shenton Hall. “Yes, of course. It’s opposite on the other side of the road,” he said. So I thanked him, walked out into the bright afternoon sunshine, to look across the road, and was flabbergasted to see a massive Jacobean-style country house. It was surrounded by a boundary wall stretching far away into the distance, both left and right, along the road. It was breathtaking in size, perspective and style. Was this the birthplace of my forefathers? It was very overwhelming! 6 First Meeting with My Natural Mother The reader will no doubt share with me the mixture of apprehension and excited anticipation leading up to my first meeting with Marjorie Hall, after all that had gone on before; aside from my own research, there was just a very brief description of her by social services and one phone call between us. We had arranged by telephone to meet at Euston Station at 6.00 p.m. on 2 September 1982, as mentioned previously. That afternoon, I drove down from the Wembley Stadium Complex, where I worked as the estates director at that time. It was a warm, late-summer evening. I arrived early and parked the car in the side streets and took up a position under the station clock tower. I was very nervous, and my heart was pounding. I didn’t have long to wait. At exactly 6.00 p.m., up walked an attractive, well-dressed, elegant lady of middle years. She introduced herself and said, “Hello, Brian. How lovely to meet you,” and we warmly shook hands. Such an extraordinary moment, never to be forgotten. I asked how long we had to talk; her train for Nuneaton didn’t leave for about an hour, so we found somewhere in the station bar to sit down and have a drink. Everyone was noisily milling around, totally unaware of the momentous meeting in their midst. I recall that she wore a well-fitted, navy-blue corduroy jacket over a blue-and-cream summer dress with a small, matching navy-blue hat, and she carried a long-handled parasol. She looked as though she had just walked out of Buckingham Palace. As I write this, some thirty years after that day, it is a highly emotional moment for me, causing me to miss her very much. The reason for this will become clearer later in the book, after reading more of Marjorie Hall’s letters to me. I recall that my mother had just seen Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, with her son Michael and his Norwegian wife, Eli, who were over from Oslo on holiday. We talked about our different lives; Mrs Hall lived at Shenton Hall with her husband, Peter Hall, who was unaware that she was meeting me. I learnt from my mother a little more about her four grown-up children. I told her about my family, my adoptive parents, and my recent divorce, and I gave her a brief outline of my business career thus far. This was by far the most extraordinary event in my life. I escorted Mrs Hall to the platform entrance, after we had agreed to continue to write to one another and to arrange for me to visit Shenton in Leicestershire, where she lived. I was thrilled and delighted but couldn’t really take in all that we discussed; it all seemed so unreal at the time. Many months later, my adoptive mother asked if I had made any progress in finding my natural mother. Recognising the sensitivity of the question, I was careful with what I said and just gave her a low-key account of the meeting. I mentioned that I had a stepsister and three stepbrothers living in the Midlands.