July 4th, ’88.
Dear –
Thank you for your ‘Mail shot’ of (date); presumably this was at the instigation of Meg Norman, or Terry Dunning. Unfortunately, there seems to be some misunderstanding, (or lack of communication) over our degree of involvement.
Let’s start at the beginning. We didn’t wake up one morning feeling at peace with the world and think “Let’s adopt a kiddy!” It happened thusly-
Our son, John (almost 6) is taken to the delightful village school of Catfield (role 27) every day by Mummy, sister Miriam (2) in pushchair, and Barney (7) wonderbitch- yes, Barney but that’s another story. John had told us often that he liked playing with Mark ‘because Mark isn’t rough’ like some. Mark is gentle.
John is a very sensitive and intelligent boy (Biased? Who’s biased? Who said that?) Mark was also madly in love with Barney, but that means nothing- scrope her belly and she’s anybody’s.. I had also heard from my wife, of Mark’s half-sister, Sarah who always came to talk to Miriam, and often took her off up the playground to join the gang, until the doors opened. We were aware that Mark and Sarah were fostered, pending adoption.
.One morning, one dread morning, my wife, Valerie, noticed that Mark and Sarah were both puffy eyed, and then Sarah came to Miriam and said “I won’t be seeing you much longer. Mark and I have to go away. Mummy doesn’t want us anymore”. and that’s verbatim. Notice, Sarah didn’t impart this secret to her best friend, not to her teacher, not to anyone but our 2yr old daughter. No, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what the significance is, but if you don’t file that snippet under ‘bonding’, where are you going to file it?
Back to the tale. Valerie was very shaken by this, and when the children had gone into school, another mother, who’s name I don’t care to remember, spoke to Valerie, and filled her in a little, saying that she was already aware of the situation- Mark and Sarah- placed with a family- one daughter, spoiled selfish- resented intruders- wanted to get rid, finally scored. Now I can’t substantiate this, and I won’t name my source, which makes it look worse. I can say she is a known practicing Christian (at a later point, she assured Valerie she would pray for us) so that’s her finished in politics, but if her information is false, someone will be able to tell you. Just don’t stay up late waiting for them.
Having heard this, Valerie immediately motored round to Thurne where I was merrily throwing off masterpieces with one hand, while shovelling money into small sacks with the other. She blurted out the story so far, through copious tears, and suggested we might do something. I immediately said ‘Yes’. No, we didn’t discuss it for a second; we didn’t need to. It’s like shortly after we married in 1980, we had a 50/50 brain transfer. I’m not ‘me’ anymore; I’m half of ‘us’ and so is Valerie. In fact, over the last eight years we’ve touched on the subject fro time to time. Mooted it, as it were, favourably. We are very much aware of our blessings, and I firmly believe that good fortune must be paid for. You can’t just take from life; you have to put something in, and though this proposal wouldn’t settle our account, it would reduce our overdraft a little, so as I say, we had mooted it, favourably, though not at great length. Like when there’s a job to be done sometime, but although you’ve got the gear, and could fit it in easily next weekend, but the time doesn’t feel right, so you keep it on a low light. Well your Honour, suddenly the time was right. There were two kids ready to cry themselves to sleep for the second night, and we could give them what they needed.
So Valerie went back home to call Terry Dunning. No, I didn’t say where she got the name and number from, and I’m not going to, so there. Call it ‘getting your finger out’. Down here in the market place, we do it all the time. That’s how we get to eat regular. That worthy gentleman took in the story so far, and said Meg Newman, social worker on the case, would contact us. He also asked were we proposing fostering or something more permanent. We were reacting to a fostering need, so proposing fostering; we hadn’t cut that fine, yet.
Meg Newman did call back, poured a lot of cold water, understandably; made the point that no way could they come straight from Sea Palling to us. We accepted that. She said we would have to be vetted- takes months, not days, and she would send us some forms.
We got your mail shot instead. ‘Hi there! So you’re thinking of adopting a young child!’ We could have picked that up in any C.A.B. I will confess we were not impressed.
Over the weekend Valerie and I discussed it and decided we should propose adoption. Actually, I was sitting on the ‘tatoe locker, watching Valerie threaten two steaks with a pass under the grill, and I said ‘I think we should propose adoption’ and she said ‘So do I’. And that was it - motion carried - let’s eat.
Monday morning, Valerie tried to contact Mr Dunning to pass that information on; it being relevant to his thinking, we thought he should know A.S.A.P., but she didn’t get to make contact until Tuesday afternoon- maybe the 4th attempt.
On Wednesday morning, at school, Valerie learned that the doves were flying on Friday.
And that is the story so far.
There are one or two missed items that I’ll mop up now. Meg Newman did get in a glancing reference to not getting involved. If that lady isn’t emotionally involved up to her armpits then she is in the wrong job. She should be selling galvanised buckets in an ironmongers’. We are emotionally involved- with our children, with Sarah and Mark, with Barney, with the bank manager, with Neil Diamond, with Jesus Christ, Fanny Brice, Humphrey Bogart, Wolfgang Mozart, Genghis Kahn, onto H. G .Wells (there’s a lot more of that when you’ve got the time for it). Our emotions are what differentiate us from lumps of wood.
Having read your free sheets, and seen the numerous invites to open days, I don’t think that’s a good idea, in our case. Listening to Joyce Grenfell 2nd tell of the frightful things young Tommy did with a budgie, a jar of Branston Pickle and a food processor isn’t going to broaden our outlook. If that sounds patronising, then let me tell you that Valerie, when working in darkest London, taught murderers, drug-pushers, prostitutes, pimps and car thieves, though she only had them for general studies, before they moved into their chosen specialised subjects. As for me, I can still remember having to fetch the neighbours to Mrs. Mollart after she opened the oven and found the cat which her simple son, Clive, had ‘sticked’ with the carving knife, and shoved in the oven, to make a Davy Crocket hat. All the other kids were convinced that poor Clive was simple because every time the poor sod spoke or moved, his mother smashed him in the face with a forearm which would have fed the street, if it had been cooked.
As for loss of parents, I qualify there, too. My father was killed at the liberation of Caen, in 1944, before I was three. When the kids were playing football, and it went into Mr. Ukin’s garden, he would chase us off, and it was always me he managed to clip round the ear (I hardly ever played; I just stood and watched) because he knew no big man would come out of my house to sort him out. So I may not have the qualifications; I haven’t attended the courses and the seminars, but in some ways, I bet I can see further into Mark’s eyes than you can.
Now that leaves the vetting. It takes months? Then let’s start the meter running now- those two children are probably still crying themselves to sleep, and we want to stop that, as soon as possible, if we can. If it has already been decided by person or policy that. for some reason, they cannot come to us under any circumstances, then we should be told, immediately. We’ve already had the hedged bet about them needing to go to a home where there isn’t a family. Has it occurred to you they maybe just went to the wrong family? But then, if there’s anything in that, then maybe somebody chose wrong, and then you get into blame, so I can see that one getting swept under the carpet.
If you want to get to know us, instead of us coming to your open day, why don’t you and the companion of your choice (you can’t be too careful what you say to folk, these days) come and have supper with us? You could mayhap fix up a date with Terry Dunning. Valerie said he seems like a pleasant feller. Wouldn’t do any harm to deal him in. No, you choose who you like. I can thoroughly recommend the food, and the home-made wine is holding up nicely. I appreciate that it’s all got to be thorough (can we have the forms first, then you can take them home with you at the latest) but thoroughness does not preclude efficiency. That’s common knowledge down here in the private enterprise yard, but you mustn’t say it too loud up in the Shining Hall of Salaries or you’ll send the price of closet rolls through the roof.
Ciao Baby – whatever that means.
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Family Adoption Unit
July 18th.
Thank you for your letter of the 12th- 2nd class mail; we picked it up as we left the house. There are several matters arising, and I’ll deal with them in reverse order:
- My ‘jaundiced’ view of bureaucracy- if you read my letter again, carefully, you will find that nowhere do I criticise your procedures, nowhere do I suggest they be cut, remodelled or curtailed. I simply suggest that as they are so detailed, and must be so thorough, let’s get on with it, and keep an eye on the clock. Now, having taken over a week to reply or even acknowledge receipt of my letter, you are hardly in a position to argue the point; you have already endorsed it.
- You won’t place children with children of a similar age; it doesn’t work. You propound this as a cast iron irrefutable theory, and yet 12 months ago, you were unaware of it. Suddenly, on the basis of one mistake, you slam up the shutters on anything similar. You’re not learning from your mistake- you’re bricking it up at the far end or the cellar. (By ’you’ I mean the corporate you, not Mr.& Mrs. Irving’s lovely girl, tho’ decisions and mistakes are made by people, not by departments). You tried growing roses; they got greenfly, so you phoned readymix concrete. As I said before, it wasn’t the children/children placing that was wrong. It was your choice that was wrong. You chose the home of a dear, sweet little cow who went to school and told anyone who would listen that Mark was mentally retarded, and where did she get that phrase from? If that’s what she said at school, what did she say to Mark and Sarah, at home, when you weren’t listening; when Mark tried to throw himself downstairs- it was himself, not Verity. It wasn’t an act of aggression; it was an acknowledgement of defeat- by whom? The problem didn’t arrive with Mark and Sarah; it was already there, waiting for them, because your much vaunted vetting procedure had failed to pick it up. You say ‘the last placing didn’t work out’ as though its all due to some malaise that blew in off the sea, by chance. It didn’t work because you got it wrong, you made a mistake (mistakes have to be paid for of course, but Mark and Sarah have picked up that tab; what we are trying to do is keep their payment programme to a minimum) and now it would appear that you are prepared to let Mark and Sarah go down the wide end of the sausage meat machine before you’ll risk burning your fingers again.
- No, you cannot assure me that they are well and happy. When you say ‘can I assure you’ you sound like Herodias plugging hubby’s child-minding service. You didn’t see the bags under their eyes, the day they left- after they had visited their happy bridging unit. Even being chuffed to little mint balls wouldn’t be enough because it’s not permanent. If you ask my boy what a Mummy and a Daddy are, he won’t know the word ‘unique’ (in the sense of one of each, for life, I mean) but that’s the idea he’ll work on. To Mark and Sarah, on the other hand, they are just grown-ups that you live with until they get tired of you, and they send you somewhere else, as the nice folks in the happy bridging unit will do, eventually. Have you told Mark and Sarah that, yet, or are you saving it for a special treat? I hate to say it to you, Margaret Irving, but on the strength of the evidence to hand, you couldn’t assure me of the right time if you had Big Ben stuffed up your woollie.
- With regard to your response, Meg Newman said, at one point, that no-one else was in the running, but someone had seen the photographs. It sounded as though you issue a catalogue every quarter. Well don’t send us the Christmas number; we’ve already roughed out our order- just send us the forms- the ones we were promised three weeks ago.
We still intend to make an official offer of adoption for Mark and Sarah, and when it comes back stamped ‘refused’ as you have apparently decided that it will, we shall require clear, concise reasons, and an opportunity to discuss those reasons with you and your masters.
You are wrong, Margaret Irving, and it won’t do.
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Aug.’88.
I want you to send a ‘gofer’ to the Family Adoption Unit, to look for a file marked Mark & Sarah ---------. It should have two copy letters from me in it, amongst other things. If the copies have been mislaid, an offer of a spanking might be needed for them to be found again. When the file is complete, tell the gofer to pull it and deliver it to you. I say ‘send a gofer’ because a gofer who knows nothing can’t answer questions.
When you get the file, I want you to read it, and let me know what you think
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