Nicky Campbell - Blue-Eyed Son: The Story of an Adoption

To Breagha, Lilla, Kirsty and Isla

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?

Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?

Bob Dylan, A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall

INTRODUCTION

I was committing adultery in Room 634 of the Holiday Inn in Birmingham when my wife rang to say theyd found my mother. It was ten thirty on Saturday morning.

I scrambled, receiver and all, to the other side of the large double bed. As far away as I could possibly get from Sarah. As discreet as I could be without appearing duplicitous.

Hi. Ive only just woken up. I just wanted this intrusion to end.

Sarah looked angry. She was hating this. Why hadnt I remembered to unplug the thing last night?

Linda sounded urgent excited.

Your man has just phoned. He has found her and wants you to call him. Id been expecting his call but I still couldnt believe what I was hearing.

OK. Ill ring him right now.

How was the programme?

Fine. Listen, Ill speak later. At least I had an excuse for being perfunctory.

I started dialling the private detectives number immediately and then stopped, put down the phone and turned to Sarah.

That was Linda.

I gathered, she said, looking away, resigned. She knew I was searching for my birth mother and she understood it was important to me. Taking a deep breath she turned to me with a question that triggered a panic deep inside me. Did your natural mum have a long relationship with your natural dad?

No, it was just a casual thing as far as I know. He was most likely some fly by night told her he loved her and cleared off. Probably married for all I know. She looked right through me. She was thinking exactly what I was thinking: like father like son?

I attempted to placate her so I could get on with the call. She gave me some space, but withheld the benefit of the doubt. I grabbed a notebook, reached for the phone again and lay diagonally across the bed ready to call the gumshoe. Boltons Bogart was a private detective called Steve.

Id met him only eight days before. The show I co-presented every Friday night was called Central Weekend Live and was in its heyday, a must-watch debate show on Midlands ITV. From Monday to Thursday I presented a late-night programme on Radio One and every once in a lucrative while I went to Glasgow to record the glittery big-money game show Wheel of Fortune.

I adored presenting Central Weekend. Every Friday night was an exotic adventure in Birmingham. It was always lively, frequently raucous and almost invariably confrontational. The night before Id hosted a debate on penis extensions. The previous week the subject had been rather more private dicks the ethics of private investigators, starring, as ever, some compelling human exhibits. It wasnt what the producer called blood on the floor but it was fascinating stuff.

The hospitality room at Centrals Broad Street Studios had a buzzing atmosphere during and after each show and when the closing credits had rolled we chatted and drank with the guests and rest of the team. It was a three-item programme so the green room was always milling with wonderfully diverse and picaresque characters. All human life was there: burglars and bishops, vampire hunters and balloon-breasted models; purple-faced fox hunters and po-faced psychics. It was like a magic mushroom mardi gras. They all had real opinions though. There was no masquerade about that.

Steve the gumshoe was classic casting. Central casting you might say. He looked every millimetre the ex cop: broad shouldered, thick-skinned and no nonsense, apart from a bit of a seventies-style handlebar effort inching down the sides of his mouth. We got talking and I told him I was looking for my mother.

I want to find out more about her and maybe get in touch.

The maybe was pure self-protection. The thought of actually going through with it still filled me with trepidation.

Be delighted to help.

I knew she used to be a nurse from Dublin who worked in some big hospitals there and I knew her name but that was it. He said it wouldnt be a problem but it might take a couple of days. A couple of days? I was staggered. He was blas.

We are all numbers. We are all on computer.

But isnt all that stuff confidential? Data protected or whatever?

There is no such thing as confidential, Nick. In my game its all about favours. His booze-fuelled braggadocio notwithstanding I felt Id crossed a threshold. There was no turning back now. I took the step. I was exhilarated and terrified. Scared of rejection. Worried that the fantasy I had cradled for so long might be easier to deal with than the truth I would confront. Excited that I was on the verge of an extraordinary life-changing revelation. Anxious that I would break Mum and Dads hearts. This was the undiscovered country.

A midweek call to Steve had produced no more than a vague reassurance that all was in hand. It sounded like a delay tactic. The Saturday-morning call from the woman I married produced a feeling I had never known before. Adolescent shivers of excitement, a deep spiritual yearning and the most intensely burning curiosity all bundled up together. Deal with it! Where would it lead? I rang Steve to find out what hed discovered.

Oh, hello, Nick. Yeah, listen, Ive got a number. She has been away for some time, possibly travelling abroad or something, and hasnt been at the address in question for a while but is back there now. She appears to be single but was married. She went for a time by the name of Stella Newton rather than Lackey, her maiden name.

I was frantically scribbling all this down. He gave me her address and I took the number down. With the international prefix and Dublin code it seemed to go on for ever.

Thanks a million, Steve. Listen, send me the bill.

Let me know how you get on. Good luck, mate.

Later, Sarah and I parted. When I got home I was shattered. Central Weekend Live beats the hell out of you. So do lies.

We phoned Stella that night. Linda felt my adoption was at the heart of all our problems. What she rightly saw as my own restless sense of incompleteness was tearing us apart. Things were bad between us in a hopeless tangle of cause and effect. For Linda, finding Stella was the great panacea. She probably had a point. I was certainly driven by a lurking and now consuming curiosity, which her promptings had drawn to the surface. Someday I had to know and now that day was tantalizingly close, the knowing became imperative.

But there was another reason. I was thirty. I was entering a new phase of life and it was clear that we would never have children. Linda had two teenage boys from her previous marriage and having a baby just wasnt an option. The realization I would never be a father led me to my mother.

It was another tired and fractious Saturday night but for once we had a common focus. Go on, phone her. Phone her tonight. Do it now. Phone her, she kept insisting. Ill speak first if you want.

I am not sure I can speak at all.

Ever a force of nature, Linda grabbed the initiative.

Lets do it now. She was on a mission, pumping with adrenalin. Shes a strong and striking woman and right then she was so strong for me.

She stood in the hall and dialled the number. I was sitting on the stairs, rigid with fear, my head buried in my hands, my body folding into a foetal position. I really didnt think I could go through with it. I was petrified and exhausted. What the hell would I say? What the hell do you say? This woman gave birth to me. I needed an epidural.

I had held this fantasy in my head for years. I had a mental picture of a beautiful but driven career woman a free spirit who found herself in this impossible situation and made an extraordinary sacrifice. She gave her baby away. Her baby was about to catch up with her. We were about to speak to her. I was about to clothe this idealized wraith in humanity. At twenty-nine I was about to make the first connection with my own flesh and blood, someone to whom I was genetically connected. That word genetic it had an almost sacred meaning for me. (It still does.) A genetic link; a magical bond. An inexpressible essence of belonging and being.