Tracing Birth Parents – the final act

A few months ago, I wrote to my father, and didn’t receive a reply. I decided then , that maybe that was the natural end of my journey, and to leave it all alone. He had my contact details, if he wanted to get in touch in the future.

About a month after that, however, I was browsing through some records I’d collected, when I discovered that I’d missed something out, about his youngest daughters’ (my half sister obviously) wedding. I had her husbands’ surname, but hadn’t bothered to try and find his first name, so I searched the marriage records with his name first, and Rollinson as the partners’ surname. Easy to find.

Wow, my sister married a guy called Craig. Not that crazy you are thinking, lot’s of people called Craig about?

Except my sister and my missus also have the same first name!

Oddly for me, I took this sign of what will be, will be, and filed it away, sticking to my original plan, of leaving well enough alone

However it niggled at me.
It gnawed at me.

Friends were great, in that they listened to me, and tried to advise me, but I think they are all smart enough to realise that I wanted someone to give me a hard direction of what to do, so that I had someone to blame if it all went pear-shaped. They were probably right. I think if I had seriously pushed it, I’d have been taken to my fathers’ house by a very good friend, despite his misgivings, but I never really did push it. It was all just idle musings.

Until Thursday last week.

I met a good friend in the pub, and told her my quandry, and for the first time asked someone what they would do. Her instant response was she’d knock on the door, get questions answered if she could, and then move on with her life. I ummed and ahhed, and her partner said

‘Let’s go. Right now. Wakefield isn’t that far from here is it?’

I sat there for some time, stunned. I’d only ever met this guy three times, and he’s offering a 200 mile round trip to lay the ghosts to rest. I’d be stupid to sit on my backside and whine about my past, having been offered a solution to it, a way to move forward. Closure, it’s a word that’s bandied about, but here was my chance.

Decided next day would be better (Friday) and after downloading a route from www.theaa.com we met up in Horncastle market square, and went off on my road trip. Surprisingly I wasn’t nervous, at least not until we got within shouting distance of my fathers’ house, but even then I wasn’t that worried. At last I had a possible answer to my questions. Even him telling me to piss off, and slamming the door in my face would have been an answer.

Pulled up outside his house, hopped out, knocked on the door.

No reply.

Post still stuck in letter box, so no-one in.

Back to the car, where my friend says, what do you want to do now?

We decided to go to my sisters’ house (the one who was married to a bloke called Craig) and see if she would pass a message on, or maybe get in contact with her dad and see about a meeting. I wasn’t sure whether she knew about her dad’s first marriage or not, so was ready to play it by ear, maybe say I’m a nephew from the family back in Rotherham etc.

Got to her house, knocked on the door, sounded like the world’s biggest dog lived there! Then I heard crunching footsteps, the gate at the side opened, and middle-aged man said

“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for XXXX……….are you John?”
“Yes”
“I’m Craig”
“What do you want?” quite brusquely.

Hmm not going too well, put it down to shock.

(My friend had watched this, and said two things to me later. His first thought upon seeing this bloke come out of my sisters’ house, was wow she married a guy that looks like the brother she’s never met. Then when this guys face dropped in shock, obviously when I said who I was, he realised it was my father.)

My legs were like jelly at this point, so we sat down on the front door step, and I asked him what happened and why.

THE CONVERSATION WILL BE ADDED IN A LATER POST OR POSSIBLY TO THIS ONE, ONCE A FEW OTHER THINGS HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO UNFOLD.

Some of what he said, I expected him to say, I’ll go into more detail later maybe, and I’m also looking into putting the scant paperwork I have online, but of course there may be legal objections to that.

Suffice to say, I know enough about why I was adopted, can guess a few other bits and it shouldn’t have been the bane of my life, but I made it so.

Ahh well, almost time to shut the door on that, actually learn from it, and move along!