Family story is uncovered (From Dorset Echo)

Family story is uncovered

9:38am Tuesday 14th July 2009 in

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MORE about Henry Debart Jackson has come to light.

The saga of the Weymouth man has been running in Looking Back for several weeks, but now Portland resident Pam Boyce has come forward with some fascinating details and photos.

When Mrs Boyce was just three weeks old, in 1950, she was adopted by Henry’s daughter Eva and her husband Frederick Riggs.

She recalls a very happy childhood and has a few vague memories of her adoptive grandfather.

Pam said: “I remember going to see him once or twice when he was married to Selina, who we all called ‘Sunshine’.

“He was a very old man by then. I also remember driving Eva to see him and waiting in the car when she went in.”

Mrs Boyce added that Henry had a reputation for a drinker with violent tendencies.

“I remember mum telling me that her mum, Lilian, had a dog’s life with Henry. He was a drinker and would get violent – but that wasn’t unknown then. Fred’s father was the same. He would come home to 11 children and no food and he would get violent when he was drunk.”

Henry and his second wife Lilian had four children – Eva, Kathleen, Ernest and Ellen.

Eva died in 1990, Ernest, who fought in the Second World War, died in 1974 and Ellen, now aged 82, lives in Yorkshsire.

The story of Mrs Boyce’s adoption was not uncommon in the early 1950s. Her mother was an unmarried Irish woman who came to England, had her baby and returned home without ever telling a soul about her ‘shameful’ secret.

It came to light when Mrs Boyce was working as a secretary at Portwey Hospital in Weymouth. She was clearing out some old admission records when she found her birth card with a contact number in Parkstone.

She called the number and the woman who answered was her mother’s sister, her aunt Eileen Arnold. She told her ‘new’ niece where she could find her birth mother and the following year Mrs Boyce and her husband headed for the small town of Cahir in Tipperary.

Her mother, Pauline Dunbar, was still alive and mother and daughter had an emotional reunion.

“My husband went to find her first and explain who we were and why we were there and my mother said ‘well, where is she then?’. It was a strange occasion because there were lots of emotion and tears and hugs, but at the same time you are thinking ‘this may be my mother but she is also a stranger’.

“We kept in touch and saw each other every year until her death 10 years later, but she still never told anyone about me. I was her ‘mystery niece’.

“But when she died I wanted to tell people the truth about what happened. The people in Ireland accepted it – I think some of them had their suspicions because they said we looked so alike.”

Although Mrs Boyce had found her natural mother, she never told Eva because she did not want to upset her. Neither did she tell Frederick.

“I did not think they would understand, although as any adopted child will tell you, finding your birth parents makes no difference to the way you feel about your adoptive parents.”