Families and Friendships Read Online Free Page A

schooldays. He did not serve overseas, neither at the start of the war, which culminated in the evacuation from Dunkirk, or later in the D-Day landings. He spent his time at a camp in the north of England, not far from his home, by which time he had been promoted to the rank of sergeant. In some ways he felt cheated, always conscious that he could not say, in honesty, that he had ‘done his bit’. All the same, he hoped he had done a worthwhile job in charge of the supply depot, and he was delighted to resume his married life with Vera. They were hoping that very soon they might be blessed with a child.
    In 1950, when they had been married for fourteen years, they both knew that they were ready for a change of scene. They had managed to scrape enough money together soon after their marriage to buy – or at least to secure a mortgage – on a little cottage not far from the mining village where they had been brought up. It was quite near to the farm where Stanley was still employed. He was by now the second-in-command there, virtually Alec’s right-hand man. Vera’s earnings as a shop assistant – she had worked in the general store in the village for many years – had helped with their finances. They had always been thrifty, and they felt it was time for them to make a move. And maybe, in a new environment, the child that they both longed for might appear at last.
    Vera fancied a complete change. As a child she had loved the little town, Whitesands Bay, where her parents had taken her and her brother and sister for occasional visits, and she knew she would love to live there, and bring up the child they hoped to have in the clean fresh air of the seaside. Stanley was willing to go along with her idea, provided he could find a job there. He was experienced only in working on the land, and having worked in the open air for so long would not want to have an indoor job.
    Luck was with them. Stanley applied for, and was offered a job in the parks department of the seaside town, helping to tend the flower beds and rock gardens that were a feature of the promenade, and the colourful displays at the roundabouts in the town. There was also a small park on the outskirts, at the very end of the promenade. They found a house that suited them and which they could afford; a two-bedroomed terraced house with a small paved area at the front, but with enough land at the rear to be cultivated as a garden, and even enough room for a small greenhouse.
    And so it was there, in the May of 1952, where they brought their newly adopted baby daughter. They christened her Deborah Mary – the Mary after Vera’s mother – but she was always known as Debbie.

Three
    Debbie had been born in Burnside House, a home where unmarried girls could stay for a few months before the birth of their babies, the children usually being given up for adoption. It was quite a pleasant place, all things considered; a large house in its own grounds in the Northumbrian countryside, midway between Newcastle upon Tyne and the market town of Hexham. It had once belonged to a wealthy family, then had been taken over by the nearby Methodist churches.
    Vera and Stanley Hargreaves had been friendly with one of the auxiliary helpers there, a young woman named Claire Wagstaff. She was a near neighbour of theirs in the village where they had spent the first years of their married life, and they still kept in touch when they moved to Whitesands Bay which was not all that far away. When the longed for baby did not arrive and they had decided that they would like to adopt a child they approached Claire to see if it was possible for her to help them. She agreed that she would do what she could, and would put in a good word for them. The adoption was carried out legally through an accredited society; but it helped that Claire, with the agreement of the superintendent of the home, had recommended the couple as being an ideal choice for