As a former resident of St Pelagia’s home for destitute girls in Highgate, I appreciate the apology from the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales for its part in the “hurt” caused to young unmarried women “who felt pressured into handing over their babies for adoption in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s” (‘Our babies were taken – not given away’, 3 November). However, it would be appreciated if the apology could be extended to all the babies – now adults like me in their 40s, 50s and 60s – who also lived at St Pelagia’s during these decades. I assume that the nuns cared for us while our mothers toiled in the laundry and, given the attitudes of the Catholic church towards our mothers, it is unlikely that we received the loving, nurturing care that we needed. The subsequent lack of support from the Crusade of Rescue, which was only focused on finding adoptive homes for us, must have added to the pressure on the mothers to give up their babies. It was assumed by the church that adoptive parents would provide better homes for us than our “sinful” mothers. This was not always the case.
Rosetta Delisle
London
• There’s so much to say about the experience of being a birth mother but your headline was a welcome contribution to the healing process of many thousands of us. To move away from the vocabulary of “given up for”, or worse, “given away”, or, worse still, the chillingly official “relinquished” has always been a small hope of mine. We were, for the most part, a weak, meek, shamed cohort of frightened young women who went on to suffer, mostly secretly, considerable psychological damage thanks to those punitive 50s and early 60s. A high proportion of us have become what are known as childless birth mothers. Oh, the jargon. Our babies, for the most part, were indeed taken.
Maggie Winkworth
London
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