I found my mum and dad after 50 years

The year was 1942 and three-year-old Christine Wilson was leaving home - only unlike thousands of other children evacuated during the war, she was destined never to go back.

Little Christine was taken to a children's home in Hull, where she was permanently separated not only from her parents, but also her brothers and sisters, who lived on the same site but in different cottages.

She didn't realise what was happening and in time began to think that all youngsters were brought up in children's homes; that her childhood experiences, often shocking, were normal.

"Times were hard. My parents couldn't afford to bring us up and thought we would be better off in a children's home," said Christine.

"I wasn't aware that I was being taken away from my parents. I was too young to understand. All I remember is going on a train with a lady dressed in a dark coat and when we got to this house she bathed me."

The children's home was divided into eight cottages with about 20 children in each. Boys and girls were strictly segregated and each child was kept busy with a long list of chores.

Christine recalls the first time her mother came on a visit, probably only months after she left the family home, but already there was distance between them.

"Miss Day, who ran the children's home, said: 'Look who's come to see you Christine.' You would think my natural instinct would have been to run to her for a cuddle, but I can remember calling my mother Mrs Thomas rather than mummy. I've often wondered why I did that, but I think I had forgotten the name, mummy, already. I felt nothing towards her, there was no bond, all I was bothered about was going back outside to play."

Over the next four years, Christine was fostered three times, but she never settled.

"I couldn't get used to a family home environment. I was used to being surrounded by lots of children, I just didn't know how to behave," she added.

Christine was labelled a 'naughty child,' due to her inability to settle, but this only added to her confusion.

"I didn't understand what I had done wrong and I think as a result of this I developed a stubborn streak - it was more about self-preservation than anything else.

"While I was growing up I received no love or affection. You would be pushed off if you went to a member of staff for a cuddle. You were told you were being soft if you cried so you learned not to. You also learned not to show your feelings, and that's affected me to this day. I never got close to anyone when I was growing up."

Christine recalls the time she was sent to bed on Christmas Day for refusing to eat her Christmas pudding and she says it was not unusual to be kicked or punched.

Falling victim to physical abuse became a way of life, but it didn't end there and Christine's evidence helped convict one member of staff who sexually assaulted other girls in a children's home in Huddersfield.

"There was a lot of cruelty and abuse, but the problem was that you never spoke up because you thought you would never be believed. There was also no-one to tell. The only time anyone came near was at the Christmas party and then we would see all the big wigs from the town hall."

Eventually, Christine, aged 15, moved into a foster home, and started working as a dressmaker and attending night school. She stayed there until she was married. It was around this time that she saw her mother for the last time...until recently.

"I didn't know this woman and I can remember asking her: 'Are you really my mother?' Because she had come a long way - all the way from Hull - she was allowed to stay all day, unlike the parents of children who lived locally who were only allowed to stay an hour at a time.

"I asked her if I could go back home with her, but she said I would have more opportunities by staying in the children's home. She would not have been able to afford to let me go to night school. That was the last I saw of her until this year," added Christine, now 58.

Christine met the first of her four husbands after the couple worked together in a factory, but the relationship didn't have a happy ending.

"I married the first man that would have me," said Christine. "I couldn't believe that someone had finally come along who wanted me. We went to the pictures on our first date and the next day he proposed."

The couple married 18 months later, but her husband walked out five years later, leaving her alone to bring up four children, three under school age.

She added: "When my youngest child was four months old, my first husband woke up one morning and told me he had found someone else. It was a huge shock, I didn't think there was anything wrong with the marriage."

Putting her own feelings aside, Christine's biggest concern was for the welfare of her children.

"I dare not tell the council or ask anyone for help in case my children were taken off me. I did not want history to repeat itself and for them to be brought up in a children's home.

"When my husband left I knew that I must dedicate my life to looking after my children."

She began fostering other children to bring in extra cash, but this era of her life started by chance.

"A neighbour asked me to take care of her children while she went shopping but she never came back. The children whom I fostered, I brought them up like they were my own.

"The authorities told me to send them back if they were any trouble. I knew they had taken that attitude when I was in care and I wasn't going to let that get with that."

Christine married again, but it didn't last and before long she was back by herself again. She married a third time after moving to Brighouse, but within months her husband suffered a stroke and became a shadow of his former self.

She says it was during this period, while nursing her third husband, that she allowed her compassionate, tender and caring side of her personality to emerge. Feelings she had suppressed for years came bubbling to the surface as she began coming to terms with her past.

"It was during this period that I finally realised I was not a bad person after all and for the first time in my life I began to feel happy and actually like myself," said Christine.

But tragedy struck after her son, Glenville, died at the age of 28 after trying to save his best friend from drowning in the River Calder at Brighouse. He left a wife and three children.

Four months after the tragedy Christine's husband also died.

It was an extremely bleak period in her life, but somehow she managed to carry on.

She married her current husband, Trevor, eight years ago, and together they run a business from their home in Thornhill Road, Rastrick, making work wear.

Christine says as she grew older thoughts of her long-lost parents, and whether they were alive or dead, began to prey on her mind.

"I started to watch parents and how they behaved with their children. It made me realise what I had missed out on."

Christine's daughter-in-law, Marlene, developed an interest in researching her family tree and it was that which sparked the long search for her parents.

"I gave her the wrong name for my parents by mistake and that delayed things, but finally we got the right surname."

Earlier this year, Christine travelled to Hull, her parents' home city, to obtain a copy of her birth certificate, which she had never seen before. Having got that far she and Marlene decided to stay overnight. The next day they paid for an appeal in the local newspaper for any information about her parents.

Christine said: "The next day I got a phone call from my sister who I had not seen for 40 years. I thought it was my mum at first, it was the same accent. She told me my mum and dad were both alive and living in a residential home."

Christine spoke to staff at the residential home, who prepared her mother Harriet, 85, and father, John, 89, for the shock.

"My mother was so nervous that she couldn't talk properly, she couldn't get her words out. It was strange, but good to hear her voice.

"We travelled to Hull a couple of days later. I recognised my mother straight away, and my dad, who I couldn't really remember, broke down in tears."

Christine says her parents' guilt at giving up their children was enormous, but they honestly felt they didn't have a choice.

She says her brothers and sisters have found it difficult to come to terms with their childhood experiences, and she's the only one who doesn't feel bitter.

Following the emotional reunion, Christine says it soon became apparent that her parents were not happy in the residential home. It was a big step to take, but Christine, with the support of husband Trevor, invited them to move in with her permanently. "My parents have not experienced kindness from the rest of my brothers and sisters," added Christine. "But I know they only put us into a children's home because they knew we would be better looked after, it wasn't that they didn't want us.

"Now my goal in life is to make them happy. I believe whatever has happened in the past is finished now and we've got to start again. It seems to me like my mum and dad's life has been really miserable and now I want to bring a little happiness into it. The only way you can be truly happy is by helping other.

"Not all family stories like this one turn out happily, but I'm glad this one has," added Christine.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.