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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 116267" data-attributes="member: 22">Cora: At first I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant. I kept it hidden for nearly four months. I was convinced [the baby’s father would] come back to me, whisk me off to the Caribbean.Cora: I can still remember my father’s face when I told him. He never looked at me the same again. I was shipped off to a mother and baby home in Faversham. They waited till it was dark before they took me to the station. Couldn’t risk offending the neighbours. Turns out they’d sorted everything — poor childless couple, bit of money tucked away.Cora: I had Ava when I was eighteen.Cora to Ava: I’m just the woman who gave birth to you. Quite frankly, that’s a compromising position I could have done without.Cora: Ava, my firstborn, the baby that never was.Cora: You were born at 3.26 in the afternoon, five pounds four ounces. Bit underweight but nothing to worry about. Sandie Shaw was number one, ‘Always Something There to Remind Me’. They played it on the wireless all the time.Ava: How long did you stay with me?Cora: An hour, maybe.Cora: You remember what they’re like in those first few moments? Beautiful and perfect, spanking brand new.Cora: Ava was mine for a second. I loved her and I gave her away.Cora on Ava: One minute she was there, just lying there in my arms. She was so tiny. I don’t think I’d ever hardly held a baby before. You didn’t then — pass them around like you do now. And then I was in the hospital — nurses running around doing their job, other mums, little ones crying. I was holding her in my arms, my beautiful little baby girl.Tanya: Wasn’t anyone with you?Cora: Weren’t allowed visitors.Tanya: Not even Nan?Cora: The sister on the ward was very strict. And then they came and took her. They put her in a little cot to sleep. She opened her eyes — not to look at me — I mean, they can’t at that age. You think they can, but they can’t. You feel like they can. Big brown eyes, she had, and little tiny fingers. I just lay there looking at them, these tiny, tiny fingers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so tiny in my life. I just lay there, looking at her. I drifted off, looking at her. I only woke up when they came to take her. They wouldn’t even let me say goodbye. They didn’t, in those days. They said it would be too upsetting. Then she was gone. My little baby girl, all alone in that big cold hospital. I never even got to leave the hospital with her, never even took her home.Name of mother on Ava’s birth certificate: Cora Anderton of St James Street Wanstead.Cora: Ava Hartman. The nurse told me her new name. She wasn’t supposed to.Cora: I remember the midwife who delivered Ava — so many questions and none of them worth asking.Cora: My Ava was so healthy, full of life, but I had to give her away. That’s how it was. I can still hear her cry.Ava Hartman: Why’d you do it? Why’d you give me up?Cora: Because I wanted to give you the best life I could.Ava on Cora: This is the woman who dumped her baby on social services over the colour of her skin.Patrick Trueman: You weren’t here in the fifties, the sixties. I was. Cora was. You’ll never understand [the racial prejudice].Tanya: You mean because Ava’s dad was ...Patrick: Black, or dark, or coloured?Tanya: You’re saying my mum didn’t want Ava because of the colour of her skin?Patrick: Your mother was no more than a kid herself. Maybe she didn’t have a choice.Cora on Ava: I gave her away because I had to. It was the right thing to do.Cora: After fourteen hours, I was back in my room packing to go home again.Patrick: Did you ever see her again?Cora: There was no need. She wasn’t my problem anymore.Patrick: But you must have kept a photo or something to remember her by?Cora: Just a silly string of beads.Ava: And then you just walked away. And then what?Cora: And then I got on with my life. What else could I do?Ava: Did you ever want me?Cora: It was different back then.Ava: Did you think about me?Cora: Of course I did.Ava: Then why didn’t you fight for me?Cora: I didn’t have any fight left in me, darling.Cora: Things happen in life. You don’t choose them. They just happen. You accept them and you move on because that’s what you’ve got to do.Tanya, speaking in 2012: My mother has been lying about my sister, hiding her away from everyone, for forty-eight years.Patrick to Tanya: What do you think she went through, giving that baby up? You think it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t think about her every single day? She had to deal with that on her own.Cora to Tanya: You want to know why I am the way I am? You want to know why I’m not like other mothers, why I’m not like other people, why I can’t love like other people? I was barely eighteen when I had her. It broke my heart and I’ve never loved anyone properly since. You make one mistake and it just follows you. All the years of trying to forget, trying to put it behind me. I let them take her out of my arms.Cora on Ava: When I gave her up, I gave up any expectations I might have had as well.Tanya: You could have told me. You wouldn’t have had to carry this on your own.Cora: We’re women, Tanya. That’s what we do. You pick yourself up and get on with it.Cora: No one ever knew. It was my secret. I never forgot her. I never ever stopped thinking of her.</blockquote>

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