A family story behind a national apology

So what will we be apologising for in 50 years' time, even 100 years?

I’m hugely proud of my grandmother, Edith Vaughan, who died of hyperthyroidism 20 years before I was born; she was just 39 years old. During the Great War she worked as a munitions worker and, although a staunch Wesleyan  Methodist, she became pregnant at just 19 years of age. We have little information as to the father – except that he was probably a married man.

For the birth she was sent 40 miles away to the Manchester and Salford Wesleyan Methodist Mission Maternity Home and Hospital in central Manchester, opened in 1903 to care for unmarried expectant mothers. I’ve no idea whether Edith was under any pressure to give her baby away for adoption – but the point is that she bravely decided to keep baby Gwen, despite the huge social stigma.

This week the Prime Minister joined the Archbishop of Canterbury in apologising for forced adoptions between 1949 and 1976, when thousands of unmarried women were pressured into giving up their babies. Sir Keir Starmer described this as "a stain on our history."

Clearly this apology meant a great deal for those many women whose babies were taken away from them soon after birth – without their considered permission. A deep hurt has been acknowledged.

One of the most poignant public statements came from former MP Ann Keen, whose son was taken for adoption in 1966. She told Parliament: "The pain never leaves you. You don't get over it; you just learn to live with it."

And yet, my own mother took a very hard, even harsh, line. I remember her telling me that the right thing to do would have been to take the newborn baby away immediately after birth for adoption into a loving family. No doubt this was a reflection of her own difficult childhood, often being sent to relatives in north Wales for weeks on end.

This conversation took place in 1971 when, amazingly, I had just started work as an unqualified Child Care Officer for the Liverpool Social Services Department. Amazingly, because I had just graduated with an economics degree and had no significant experience. In that era we were not directly involved in adoptions – these were the responsibility of various charities, usually church-based.

However, I do remember one case in which I was involved. I can’t recall the details, only that my opposite number was a well-spoken middle-class almoner (that was the title then for a hospital social worker) from the children's hospital. The reason I remember is that she deliberately gave me incorrect information – she lied – which led to a tense telephone conversation.

Her reasoning was stark. This particular baby, she believed, deserved a better upbringing in a comfortable middle-class family straight from the Ladybird books than being raised in poverty on a run-down council estate. I remember being shocked, not simply by her view, but by the confidence with which she expressed it.

At that point I did what all good social workers should do and referred it directly to Anne, my brilliant senior.

Clearly it was appropriate and necessary for Sir Keir and Archbishop Sarah to make their apologies. I have no doubt about that. The problem is that we are judging a different culture. To quote the much-quoted L. P. Hartley: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Yet recognising that the past was different does not excuse injustice. Understanding the pressures and assumptions of the time helps explain what happened, but it does not diminish the suffering of the mothers whose babies were taken from them.

As Christians, however, there is another lesson. It is remarkably easy to spot the sins of previous generations. We look back and ask, "How could they have believed that? How could they have treated people like that?" But the Bible repeatedly warns us against self-righteousness. So Jesus challenges us: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)

History teaches us that sincere, decent and even deeply religious people can become captive to the assumptions of their age. Many of those involved in forced adoptions genuinely believed they were acting in the best interests of the child, the mother and society. We now see that they were wrong, but many were not acting out of cruelty. They simply could not see the moral blind spot that surrounded them.

That should make us pause.

Where are our own blind spots? What is the log in my eye? Which of our present attitudes will our grandchildren look back upon with bewilderment? What accepted practices today will one day provoke apologies from prime ministers, archbishops and church leaders? We cannot know for certain. But we can cultivate the humility that says, "Lord, show me where I am wrong."

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of history. It reminds us that every generation needs repentance. Every generation needs the courage to question its assumptions. And every generation needs the grace of God, because none of us sees perfectly.

The cross of Christ shows us that sin is always more serious than we imagine. And wonderfully, that God's mercy is always greater than our failures. That is true for the past, it is true for the present, and it will still be true for whatever future generations discover about us.

So yes, we must apologise where apology is due, however painful.. Let us listen to those who have suffered. But let us also ask the more uncomfortable question: what are we doing today that our grandchildren will one day find impossible to defend?