Nicky Campbell On Adoption

How old were you when you were adopted?

I was adopted as a very, very tiny infant. I think I was about five or six days old, but it was a prearranged adoption, in that my birth mother had been a matron in a hospital in Dublin, and she was Protestant, and my biological father was a Catholic considerably younger than her. And she had had two babies actually, she had two babies adopted in the space of 18 months so I have a half sister who I subsequently traced, but that's another story. And so she went over to Edinburgh from Dublin and told everyone in Ireland she was ill, had to recuperate, or had business to do, took some time off work. And she shared a GP with my mother and father. And one day my dad had a dreadful hangover because he had been to this works party or something, and I went along to the doctor to get a hangover cure, and they had unsuccessfully been looking to adopt I think, and it was a private adoption which was rather easier in those days and then the doctor told them about a woman in his practice who was going to have a baby and that's how it all came about, just one of those lucky things and it seemed just so meant to be. I had such a happy childhood, such a perfect family, such a loving family and you do wonder sometimes about fate, you think if dad had not had that hangover, if she had not had that GP, what would have happened, you can get all philosophical, think about the nature of roads that diverge and converge and what's life all about but that's how it happened really, so I was very, very young.

How did you find out you were adopted?

I was still of an early age when I found out I was adopted, it was part of the narrative within my family. There are so many people I come across in my generation who were not told. I have a friend who found out she was adopted when she was 21 years old. These days, it is a whole lot better. It is a whole lot more professional, thanks to changes in the law and changes in the attitude, thanks to organizations like BAF. But I knew from an early age, I was told I had a mommy who can not look after me and so my mother was my new mommy and she was very brave and did the right thing, this woman, because she was not able to look after. So I have this story and knew about this. But within me it fostered a life-long -- in terms of childhood-long teenage years -- driving curiosity to find out who she was, who my biological father might have been, and what was that back story? Because it was all very sketchy --Dublin, matron, professional woman, brave, good decision, all that stuff. That did not affect in any way or undermine how I felt about mom and dad and how they felt about me. But at the same time, one did feel a little bit of guilt when you considered it, which is a natural thing. It happens a lot with adopted people, especially when they go and do the tracing. You feel, “How can I slap my parents in the face like this.” But it's natural to want to know. Some people choose not to because of that very reason. But mom in particular was pretty understanding. Who wouldn't want to know? And I think a lot of people when they do trace, if they're tracing to look for a new mom and dad and a new family because they've had a bad experience, it's very much for the wrong reason, and then we have huge expectations, in my experience. And it can be wonderful but it can be a huge letdown. My whole imperative for tracing was curiosity.

Were you always curious about who your birth parents were?

My curiosity about the adoption story, it was always there, but I would go through periods of denial and periods of acknowledgement, the denial if I was feeling that it undermined who I was and what I was, but also acknowledgement because one does build up a kind of fantasy, a fantasy of this. It's a sort of duality of life; you live a kind of bipolar life. However happy you are, however much you love mum and dad and mum and dad love you, there's still this kind of alternative, there's still this kind of escape route, this parallel universe. And I think to an extent, to be honest, that this has afflicted other aspects of my life as well sometimes, but it would probably need a psychoanalyst to unravel all that. But I remember my mum, who was a psychiatric social worker, coming into my bedroom when I was about sixteen, or leaving in my bedroom when I was about sixteen, lots of leaflets, saying that this is how to trace, if you want to trace, this is what to do, and I felt terribly threatened and undermined by all that. She meant it in the nicest possible way, but I felt very threatened and undermined by that, and I remember saying "I'm not interested, I'm not interested," as a defence mechanism. And so when it came to many years later, when I did trace, she said "Well I thought you always said you weren't interested," but it was a kind of defence mechanism. And I also remember a friend of mine feeling threatened by it, because a friend of mine said once, "Well do you know why your eyes are blue?" because my eyes are blue and my parents eyes aren't (blue). And I remember feeling angst about that, I thought oh my goodness me he's onto me, he knows, and stuff like that, but it emerged when I spoke to him about this quite recently, he said "Well I don't remember knowing or thinking or saying that for that reason." He said, "I think we just had a biology lesson that day and I had to find out why eyes are the colour that they are, and I was asking 'Hey do you know why your eyes are blue? Hey it's because the iris is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." It was just a little irrelevant statement. I guess it illustrates the sensitivity that I had about it then, but very much though you do or I did build up this kind of real fantasy, which that merely blew up the curiosity, added to it all, intensifying it.

Did you feel different amongst your peers growing up?

I desperately wanted to be not adopted. I felt completely validated. None of this came from my parents who loved me just as much, and my sister would maintain more, than her and she was their birth child. And my sister, who was their birth child, desperately wanted to be adopted. So it's kind of choosing what you don't have and the grass being greener on the other side. But I did, yes, and I was also fearful of people finding out because I thought I would be in some way undermined. And it took a lot the first time I was able to articulate and tell somebody "I am adopted". It was kind of like coming out. So that was difficult. I did feel a kind of sensitivity to it all. Goodness only knows how much worse I would have felt if I would have had an unhappy childhood. That's the other thing. I had a brilliant childhood.

Why do you think you felt differently?

It's difficult to know whether it's an objective feeling or a subjective feeling, whether it does come from within or whether it is just, you feel it because you know, so it is difficult to say, but I did feel different.

Did you tell your adoptive parents your were looking for your birth parents?

I told my adoptive parents I was looking for my birth parents. But there is always a sense of treachery, which I think loads of people feel when they're tracing. You think, "Why am I doing this?" But I think it's understandable and it's justifiable. It's good to know. It's good not to be a secret anymore. These issues don't occur these days because there is contact from an early age, which I think, to an extent, it explodes all the mystique and gets rid of all that stuff. I'm not sure how I would have coped with it. I can't say how I would have coped with it without actually going through that process but it's so much more successful now.

Are you still in contact with members of your birth family?

Yes I am still in contact with members of my birth family and birth parents. In fact some helped me tremendously with my book. But like all things, all families, it kind of comes down and the people you are in more contact with are the people that you get on with. It's like non-families. There is a kind of shake down after the kind of honeymoon period that you have in tracing. There is a honeymoon period to it that you kind of are mutually fascinated. That comes down and reality kicks in. And reality sometimes is a very comfortable thing.

Has meeting your biological parents changed you?

I think…I am so happy that I did this tracing over this long period of my biological parents because I would not have any other way and now I know it is great not to be a secret anymore. It is great not to be kind of a ‘hidden shame'. It is great that I can move on with my life without this inner turmoil of "who was I?, who was she?, who was he?, what were they doing?, what was the story?", I found out their story. I did the research, I know what happened, I know who they were, I know their backgrounds and also know how much mom and dad mean to me. So, from that point of view, I would not change a thing. So yes, I would not proselytize on that, I would not say, “Oh, everyone has got to do this.” You have got to feel right about it and you've got to protect yourself because it is tough, it can be very, very tough. You're talking about raw emotional truths that you confront.

Were you worried that your birth parents would want no contact?

It crossed my mind on both occasions that they wouldn't be interested, but that was just I guess a hurdle I had to get over and luckily it wasn't the case they were interested.

What was it like for your birth mother finding her children?

It was rejoice full for our birth mother. I remember her ringing me one day because my half sister named Daydred by our mother called. But her parents called her Esther when she was adopted. I remember my birth mother ringing me one day and said your sister has phoned, would you like to speak to Esther. I thought she means Esther Rainsford. I thought she had gone bonkers. For all the difficult life she has had, to be reunited with her two children, to have met them, finding out what they have done is very successful. It was a great thing for her.

What did you learn from this journey?

I learned the facts. I learned the truth. And I learned about love. I learned about love from mum and dad - not that I didn't know, but that's a sort of lesson as you get older. The love they gave me was unconditional, and made me what I am. It gave me the strength to set off on the road of life. And I learned about my birth parents - the whole story, on both sides. And I also learned that life is incredibly fascinating, fantastic, frightening and unpredictable.

What advice would you give to someone looking for their birth parents?

My advice to anyone looking for their birth parents would be, don't have huge expectations. Don't expect this great soft-focus Hollywood Strings reunion. Just go into it, if you go into it at all, with advice -- I think from professionals, ideally, which is what I didn't have -- with good counselling. I don't necessarily mean that in the professional way, but just good advice. Maybe good counselling, too. And, to go into it knowing it's going to be tough, it's going to be challenging. The bottom line is, if you're going to find out. Some people who say they don't want to do it because it's too much bother, or whatever, or because of the emotional hassle of it, I say if I put down the details of your birth mother and biologic father in a brown envelope on the table, would you open it up? They say, "Yes, I would open it up, and I'd read it." Imagine that you're just looking for that brown envelope. Imagine that you're just looking for those details and that information. Anything else is a bonus. And you've also got to remember that there's a honeymoon period, which shakes down into normality and reality.

Are you pleased that you searched for your birth parents?

I'm so glad I searched for my birth parents because I don't spend my life thinking "I wonder."

How does adoption make a difference?

Adoption is the most wonderful thing to do. It is a magical, almost sort of alchemy when a child goes into a family. It really is, it's something transcendent, that that child, as I did, becomes so much part of that family. Adoption, it's a better process now because all this sort of, give you a new identity, completely reinvent you, that doesn't go on anymore. And the default position is that, I think it's more successful. People become perhaps even more organically, integrally part of those families. Because there isn't that, "Oh, him, I wonder." There are lots of children needing to be adopted and just seeing, we are natural nurturers, there's a phrase, natural carers as a species and it just brings out the very best in people. And the love that I've seen in adoptive families and people adopting is just so moving and too incredible for words. Something wonderful happens, I think its people at their best. And also, just as I was given such an opportunity and such a good life, you have the opportunity to make such a difference and to make someone's life.