What was it like growing up as an adopted child?

I always knew I didn’t fit. I was like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that was missing. Until Margaret, in her wisdom, got me together with those brothers and we saw all the lookalikes - that’s when everything changed. I suddenly felt the missing piece of the jigsaw had just been fitted into place. I felt a feeling of relief. I finally knew where I fit, though it wasn’t mother’s side so much. I didn’t see the lookalikes there. I’m still in touch with my niece, Kirsty. She was at my 90th birthday with her family - her son Kyle and daughter Chelsea. They’re well into their teens now, and I get on really well with them.

My mother was a woman of great thoughts and wisdom. When I asked her before she died, ‘Why didn’t you let me know about my New Zealand side?’ she said she was worried I might be rejected. The only rejection I got was from the two sisters, but I didn’t care so much about that. I’ve always gotten on better with boys anyway! The only trouble I’ve had over the years, even at work and stuff, was with women. Ladies wanted to talk about sewing and curtains and stuff, while I’d rather talk with the men about cars and drinking.

I had a good upbringing though. Grandma Brown made sure she encouraged me with everything I was good at. When I think back about how she wrote out that song I composed when I was eight, how she encouraged me and sent me to good schools - her own flesh and blood went to state schools, while she sent me to the convent! She probably thought the nuns would tame me down a bit because I was a bit headstrong. Looking back now, I think my mother’s genes were showing through and they weren’t being responded to.

I was fortunate to have Ria, my adoptive sister - well, she was always my sister to me. I grew up under the rules of that home, so I really felt in later years more like part of the family than I did when I first found out I was adopted. Grandma Brown loved my children better than her real blood relation children too. It’s funny how things work out sometimes.

But you know what? When you grow up adopted, you’re always searching for where you fit. It’s like having a missing piece inside you. That’s why it meant so much when Margaret helped me find my biological family. Suddenly, everything made sense - I could see where I came from, who I looked like. It completed something in me that had been incomplete my whole life.