Photo credit, Helen Ward
“They found me in a checkered bag, dressed in blue. »
Raised in a warm and loving family in Belfast, David McBride always knew he was adopted.
But it wasn't until he was 15, when he applied for a birth certificate to join the army, that he realized how little was known about his origins.
The document was almost blank. His biological parents were listed as unknown, as were details such as his place of birth and even his date of birth.
His adoptive father told him what little he knew. McBride was a foundling; as a baby, he was discovered abandoned in the front seat of an unlocked car.
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Together, McBride and his father decided to find out. They began their research at the municipal library, going through press clippings.
At the time he was found, his case made headlines because child abandonment was almost unheard of in Northern Ireland at that time.
The Church, McBride explains, often offered support – or at least shelter – to mothers and their babies born out of wedlock.
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“If a woman became pregnant outside of marriage, she was ostracized from society. And the problem was [the tendency to] hide everything. »
The press clippings gave him little information, but confirmed that he had been well treated. “I was well fed and well cared for. »
He figured his mother was young and scared. He decided to try to find her.
The “tartan twins”
However, decades passed and, despite researching and even appearing on a BBC show about foundlings, McBride found few answers.
Encouraged by his sister, he decided to take a DNA test.
This result changed everything. He had a biological sister.
“It was a wonderful shock… It was as if Christmas had arrived. »
Her name was Helen Ward; but rather than answering his questions about her mother, she had as many questions herself: she too had been abandoned as a baby.
“I was found in a green checkered bag in a telephone box,” says Ward. “My first thought was that we were the tartan twins. »
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They weren't twins. They were born seven years apart and were found on either side of the Irish border. Yet the similarities were striking.
“I was found by a truck driver,” says Ward. “The bag contained a hot bottle and a change of clothes. I was very well dressed and bundled up. »
Like McBride, Ward grew up in a loving adoptive family, but when she became a mother herself, she decided she needed to know more about her own mother.
She contacted a social worker in the area where she was found and the worker showed her a birth certificate similar to the one McBride had encountered years before. It said “mother unknown”, “father unknown” and “child found naked in a telephone box”.
“I was so upset. We have so many questions, and it's so difficult to find answers. »
Over the next few years, Ward also conducted her own research: she told her personal story on an interactive radio show and tracked down both the police officer who took her case in 1969 and the truck driver who first discovered her.
But it was after a friend gave her a home DNA testing kit that she found her long-lost brother. “It was incredible,” she said. “I kept pinching myself. »
A new search
When they finally came face to face and recognized each other's physical features, the experience was almost overwhelming.
“You’re trying to take it all in.” You have so much to say that you want to explode,” says Ward.
“As soon as we met, everything around us seemed to no longer exist,” McBride says.
But as soon as one search was over, another began again – that of their parents.
They eventually discovered that their mother had died at age 90, shortly before they met again. Their father had died years before.
But they were able to reconstruct certain elements of their history.
“Our mother was a country girl. Our father was a city guy,” McBride says. “She was much younger. The city lights lured her from the west coast of Ireland to Dublin. Our father was a conductor in Dublin. She met him when she was probably going to ballrooms. They had an affair that lasted forty years or more. »
McBride thinks that if their affair lasted so long, they must have been in love. But their relationship was complicated.
He was married. He was Protestant, while she was Catholic.
At a time when Ireland was deeply divided along religious lines and remained socially conservative, David believes they simply transgressed too many taboos.
“Catholic and Protestant. Born out of wedlock... What hope did they have? » he asks.
But there was another surprise, incredible. Ward remembered a story she had read during her years of research, and it got her thinking: What if she had another brother?
“It was said that a baby was found in 1965 in a telephone box,” she says. “He was in a bag, with a warm bottle. All the elements of his story were therefore part of mine and that of David. »
A young Australian woman, after seeing a television report made by McBride and Ward about their research, began to think about her own Irish father, John. It turned out that he was actually their full brother.
“He was the middle child,” Ward says. “When the three of us sat down to meet, it was surreal. We find ourselves face to face with his family. And a thousand questions arise again. But at the time, it was magical. »
These unanswered questions and what Helen describes as "unspoken conversations" with their parents leave a void they recognize they can never fill.
But Helen and David both say they can't judge their mother for her decisions.
“It must have been horrible for her,” says Helen, “to abandon her three babies so soon after carrying and giving birth to them. »
David says he saw a video of their elderly mother clutching a doll and refusing to let go.
"I wonder if, towards the end of her life, she didn't think: 'That's my child. I've already lost three children and you're not going to take him away from me.' »
Based on an episode of Outlook broadcast on BBC World Service
We used AI to help translate this article, originally written in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication. Learn more about how we use AI.
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