I am an illegitimate child, born in 1935.

I grew up in a desperately poor, hard working, loving family. My mum obviously, who had to go out to work cleaning other women's houses. My grandad, who died in 1947 when I was 12. My aunt, who was a polio survivor who spent much of her life, from 1926 onwards, sitting on the floor from where she did everything - cooked, baked, sewed, knitted, made leather gloves, repaired clothes, you name it. And looked after me. And my gran, who died when I was 3.

My great-grandmother, gran's mother, was a remarkable woman. I never knew her, but she lived in the Dales and had several children to different fathers. My gran was one. She had one son, who had a successful career on the railways, as was possible in those times - guys could start out at the bottom and work their way into responsible positions. And my great-great-grandmother also had my great-gran out of wedlock. Young women had to go out to work, to live-in other people's houses, and it's hard to believe now how vulnerable they were. 'Sexual harassment at work' hadn't been thought of.

Anyway, it's my belief that it was my gran, with her background and history, who was responsible for me growing up at home and not being sent away. And my aunt too. Apparently they all 'fell in love with me when they saw my little face'.

I was loved and cared for, went to grammar school, eventually into nursing, then to university as a mature student. Had a happy marriage until he died in 1992.

I discovered a lot of things when I was studying family history in the late 90s. Because my mum was a single woman she was called up for forces service in 1943. I do have some memories of things being said over my innocent head, people who came to our house 'you can always put her in a home'. That didn't happen, but I believe it was a near thing for a while.

I haven't watched 'Call the Midwife' although I did read the first book in the series.

Thank you at least I know I have sold one book! Mumofmadboys x

jimorourke, you're probably thinking of the Philip Larkin poem 'They f* you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do......But they were f***ed up in their turn, by folks in old-style coats and hats....'

Somebody once said that "your parents do something very unpleasant to your brain" or words to that effect. I can't stand the holier than thou attitude of hypocrites.

I do know a woman who wrote a book about her life in a children's home, she found the libel laws restricted much

A lot of working class people like my family were used to poverty and exhausted mothers and fathers who worked very hard but could never get out of the bit.

I met a young married couple in the late sixties who had a baby they gave up for adoption because they weren't married at the time. I thought that very sad as they were boyfriend/girlfriend but both living with their parents when their baby was born. In 1978 I met another married couple and they said they had been through a lot together as they had given up their first baby for adoption, as they weren't married and didn't want their parents to find out. They were living a long way from their home towns so their parents wouldn't have known the woman was pregnant. When I met them they had been married for a few years and had two small boys. It seemed a very extreme thing to give your baby away just so you didn't have to tell your parents. The baby would have been born in early 1970 when opinions were not as rigid as previous years.

Stansgran - I agree this thread is a a classic for social history, but I'm not sure about preserving it.
I thought a long time before deciding to post my story, still not sure I was right. Maybe if the people you write about are still alive it's better not to post.

One of my dearest friends became pregnant by the charmer who came from a nearby town to work in the garage in our village. He scarpered and she was too scared to tell her parents (I was petrified of her Mum!) so continued to go to work until, one day, her waters broke at work. Her parents were horrified and her mother said the baby was to be adopted. However, her father went to the hospital, took one look at the baby and said she could keep him. My friend's father was a very gentle man who never usually stood up to the battle axe (usually spending hours in his garden), but this time he did.

My friend and her family looked after, and loved, the boy who was born with severe learning difficulties until he died a couple of years ago, aged 41, of a heart attack. I think the fact that they lived in a village where it was almost commonplace for some families to have a whole series of children with unacknowledged fathers made it easier.

My friend never married but just before her son died had met up with the boy/man who was her first boyfriend and they recently got engaged.

My Mum was thrilled - not only had my friend failed her 11+, while I had passed mine, but she 'got into trouble' too!

During WW1, a great aunt who was a mill girl in Lancashire met and became pregnant by the son of a prominent local solicitor. He was away fighting when she wrote to tell him but he had died in action. Her family sent her to stay with an aunt until the baby was born. His family found the letter and came and persuaded her to let them have the baby. She never saw the baby or the family again. This all came out after she died, told to the family by the only sister she had trusted with the story. It probably explains why she was a bit scary as her moods were so unpredictable.

That's a great idea. You should contact GNHQ.

There are some threads on Gransnet which I think are social history. There should be an Archive. Mumsnet have Classics perhaps we could have archives.

Get writing Bralee ! I would buy it!

It's good to be able to talk about things, Bralee, and feel completely anonymous while doing so.
It sounds like things were really difficult for you when you were young, but the fact that your son managed to find you is wonderful.

Thank you for the comments to my earlier posting. I keep trying to write "the book" as I was just placed a ward of court and therefore in a children's home, into the Borough of Barnet when I fell pregnant on my first holiday camp break with the home! I was also extremely fortunate that my son found me when he was 20 and that's why I have always wanted him and I to write "the book" as there were so many spooky coincidences and our paths crossed! More upsetting was the fact because I was in care of the council had I kept him he would automatically been a ward of court until he was 18 and placed in the home with me. There are so many terribly sad parts to this story, the night I had him just with gas and air and 9lb 9oz! and put in the ward with all the married mothers with their husbands visiting and looking down at me, the day I had him taken from my arms at 6 weeks old in some cold room in Barnet but the worse his adopted mum died when he was 13 and he was then put in a children's home the very main reason I gave him up. Much more to this story which I promise myself I will write that book! This is why this site is so brilliant, it's nice to belong!

I knew several girls in the 60s who got pregnant while unmarried, One was sent away to have baby in secret and it was presumably adopted, two married the father in haste but neither marriage lasted, and one insisted on keeping the baby much to her parents' anguish. But she later married a windower with young children and they went on the have one between them. This was all in the 60s. Who knows how many I didn't get to hear about? It was generally hushed up and the Call the midwife story line this week was spot on . (The one where the young lad was hoping to go to university but his girlfriend was pregnant.)
My MiL was illegitimate and deeply ashamed. She had all sorts of abuse when she was young due to the stigma. He mother had two illegitimate children and neither knew who their father was. He mother later married so they were legitimised but it was not their father. My DH didn't even know about this until she told us both, in tears, after our wedding. This would have been in the 1920s though.

Attitudes MAY have changed in the late sixties, but they were certainly "alive and well" at the start of the decade, as evidenced by my comments earlier.

My FiL and his brother married two sisters, only to find out that they were aunt and niece. It turns out that their father had two families on the go at the same time and he was not a man to be trifled with, so both mothers accepted the situation. From what little has been said, he did provide for both families and both women called themselves Mrs X. He was married to my DH's grandmother, but both women called themselves his wife. He had other children too with other women, but from what I can glean, nobody talked about what was happening outside of their own family. DH doesn't actually know who Mum's parents are though, just who she called Mother and Father (DH never knew them).

DH's aunt makes passing reference to 'Father' now and again, but it's clearly not a subject for discussion. DH knows very little about his family and doesn't have a curious nature, which I find frustrating as Mrs Curious. Since my FiL's 2nd wife died a few years ago, we've become closer because I take him to all his medical appointments and he's delighted in telling me about his life. I suspect I know more about DH's family than he does now, but it's clear that his mother's side of the family has a fair bit of illegitimacy that was accepted, yet covered up and not discussed.

Or phage= orphanage ipad in control.

Nannabo glad to hear a positive outcome in the Sixties. And Jalima it's good to know that baby hatches are being revived. I remember seeing one in Antwerp in the medieval or phage and the mothers there could leave a token with which they could claim the child.

I was born in 1960 illegitimate. My grandparents adopted me and my mother became my sister. I have no idea who my father is and have never been tempted to ask. It has never bothered me and I am quite open about it when I need to be. I am not ashamed about it because at the end of the day it was not my fault. I had a fabulous upbringing and still call her my sister to this day.

In the early 1960s the NCUMC discussed possibilities with pregnant unmarried women; the mother and babies homes were available for those with no alternative, no family support, the desperate. They varied according to who they were run by but were indeed a last resort.
Nowadays we rarely know, or need to know, a woman's marital status and hopefully 'What will the neighbours say?' Is far less important.

Stansgran It is very sad that it happens occasionally these days, too.

And baby hatches are still around in some countries I believe:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_hatch

When I came to the north east in the Very late Seventies I was appalled to read in the local papers about babies being found in telephone boxes or generally wrapped in Tesco carrier bags. There would be a plea for the mother to come forward and the baby was given a name. It then seemed to die down as people became more accepting. I think coming from Liverpool there was a much more tolerant view or possibly an amoral view I don't know.

My great aunt also born in the later 1800s. My grandfather went away to an orphanage (where he had a good education) after his father died. One holiday he came home to find his widowed mother nursing her newborn daughter. He and at least one sibling never acknowledged her. She spent her working life from about 14 as a maid in a theatrical boarding house and contacted my mother about 1960 when she got to pensionable age and retired. This tiny bent lady was so grateful for her pension and thrilled with the almshouse my mother helped her to apply for. Her own home with a tiny garden after decades of backbreaking domestic work. She was unfailingly cheerful and used to bring chocolate finger biscuits and other treats when she came to tea. She enthralled my mother with stories of the singers and actors she had met. The census returns for the boarding house record jugglers, musicians and magicians from all over Europe.
I don't understand how her siblings could have rejected her for so long, I'd always found my grandfather a kind man.

I only found out my grandmother was illegitimate MargaretX when I researched the family history. She was brought up by her GPs and then by her aunt. It was not talked about but DM hinted a couple of times that there was something about her MIL that they couldn't speak about. Nonetheless, I think she had a happy childhood with her aunt and aunt's husband and her one surviving cousin because they remained close.

There were also informal adoptions, not legal but arranged between neighbours and friends. My great-grandparents on the other side of the family informally adopted a little boy from friends after his mother died when he was about 2. That would have been in the late 1800s. His actual grandparents took his sister but not him. He seemed to have had a happy life with my GGPs and went on to have a good career.