大象传媒

Finding my Mother.

I was sixty and applying for my State Pension when my partner suggested that I might like to look for my parents. The only knowledge I had to start 'The Search' as it became, was written in my passport. I had been born in Trowbridge. I had always thought that Trowbridge was in Sussex so when my partner showed me a map of Wiltshire and there was Trowbridge I was thrown into confusion. I have always thought that I had been born in Winchelsea, registered in Trowbridge in Sussex. The only other details I had been told as an adopted child were that my mother had died in a bomb raid and I had been pulled from the rubble.
We spent nearly a year trying to trace the whereabouts of my mothers grave. Finally we found an entry in The War Graves Commission site on the web. She was in Winchelsea. You can imagine the trepidation as we approached the church which stands in the centre of the town. At first we could not find her and then after the very kind assistance from the residents I was looking at my mothers resting place.
The stories I had carried in my head since childhood turned out to be true. In 1943 when I was three years old a bomb had dropped on the town at a crossroads and had demolished or damaged the properties on all four sides. Our family home being one of them. After talking to people in Winchelsea I found that the bombing has been well documented as part of the towns history and I learnt that my mother had run up the stairs to rescue me from the bedroom and had died from a direct hit from an aircraft shell as she reached the top of the stairs with me in her arms.
I was subsequently boarded out with my two sisters, who had been in school at the time, and lived in various orohanages until I was adopted at the age of thirteen.

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