Seeking a family

LESLEY Beattie's most treasured possession is a bright yellow photocopy with the name M Cassidy scrawled on it. That signature - just eight letters - printed on an adoption order is all she has of her natural mother.

Lesley, 45, was placed into care aged two and was adopted from Burdyke Children's Home in York by Chris and Jenny Thompson, a childless York couple in their 40s.

They didn't tell Lesley until she was 12 that she was adopted - and until the age of 40, all she knew about her past was that she was born in Hackney, London, on November 30, 1955 and that her mother's name was Maureen Cassidy.

Attempts to glean more information about her natural parents were always dismissed by her adoptive parents, recalls Lesley.

"As far as they were concerned, they had chosen me... they wouldn't talk to me or answer any questions, because they didn't want to hurt themselves - and I fully understand that," says Lesley.

"But you do build up resentment. It's not that you don't love them, and it's not that you are not grateful - but I do think that blood is thicker than water."

Lesley married George, a police officer, when she was 18 and they had three children Hazel, now 25, and twins Adele and David, now 23.

Lesley, who owns Quantum estate agency in Walmgate, York, says the Thompsons were "wonderful" grandparents, but their reluctance to talk about her origins put a strain on her relationship with them.

Whatever information the Thompsons knew about Lesley's past was lost when they died: Ddad first in 1980 and mum earlier this year.

When Lesley began sorting through her mum's things afterwards, she was hopeful of uncovering pieces from her past: baby pictures, a note from Mum about the whereabouts of Maureen, or better still, a letter from her natural mother herself.

Disappointingly, all Lesley found was a box containing her adoption order and her full birth certificate.

There was little to help her in her quest to uncover the whereabouts of Maureen, a journey she had begun five years previously - behind her adoptive mum's back, for fear of upsetting her.

With the help of George, the couple relied on good old-fashioned police work to try to piece together the jigsaw of Lesley's other life.

They began by contacting the local authority who dealt with Lesley's adoption and were signposted to Wakefield, where Lesley's records were still on file.

She was told she would not be able to read the entire file, but would be given 'edited highlights' of the key facts to help her in her mission.

Fearful of what she might discover, but excited too, Lesley recalls being gripped by panic during the drive to Wakefield with George.

"It was a step forward - even if it was a bad step, it was still a step forward that I'd never had," she says.

Lesley's head was spinning after the visit. In the space of minutes, she'd uncovered parts of her past which had been kept secret for more than 40 years.

The file dated from 1956 and revealed several of Maureen Cassidy's previous addresses as well as mentioning 'cousins' in Darlington.

They discovered that while Lesley was being adopted by the Thompsons, Maureen was pregnant with a second child and living at a mother and baby unit in Blackburn.

Also in the file was a marriage notice cut from the Yorkshire Evening Press on October 30, 1957 for Maureen and Sidney Hardgrave. In the notice were the names of Maureen's parents - Lesley's grandparents - Mr and Mrs J Cassidy of Stockton on Tees and the names of Sidney's parents, Mr and Mrs J Hardgrave of York.

Later, they found an address for the Hardgraves, but the family had moved on. However, a neighbour remembered Sidney and Maureen and their two small children.

Further contact with Wakefield revealed more news about these children: a boy Michael and a girl, eerily named Lesley.

"That was a huge shock for me," confesses Lesley. "It really knocked me for six. I hated Maureen that day for calling another girl Lesley. I felt it was shutting the door on me.

"But my husband said there is another way to look at it: it's her way of saying that I haven't been forgotten - it's her memory."

Further leads were revealed when a friend found a death notice for Sidney in the Evening Press from May 18, 1982. This revealed that the family had moved to Thornaby, near Stockton on Tees, and mentioned he was father-in-law to Peter and grandfather to Jonathan - who were obviously her sister Lesley's husband and son.

Visits to the Stockton on Tees area to try to trace the family further have drawn a blank, although Lesley did discover an address for a Michael Hardgrave at Saltburn, only to learn he'd moved away seven years earlier.

And without the married name of her sister, that lead has grown cold too.

Lesley now feels her search has hit a brick wall and would desperately like help or advice on how to take it further.

She'd love to hear from anyone who knows or remembers her family, or anyone who has searched for their relatives and can offer advice on what to do next.

Whatever the future holds, Lesley is under no illusion that it will necessarily be a rosy one.

"If I found Maureen and she didn't want to see me, it would be the biggest blow I could ever face. But I've got to the point where if I didn't go through with it, I'll always be looking for this lost piece," she says.

What Lesley would particularly like is a picture: a snap of Maureen, or of her as a baby. All the pictures in Lesley's family album start when she was a toddler at home with the Thompsons.

"My life didn't start when I was two, it started like everyone else when I was born. I want to know where I genuinely come from. Everybody else can look at photos and see the family likeness, but I can't and I'd really like to.

"I don't want this to sound like a sob story. For me, my life just doesn't feel complete. I've felt like that since I was a child - and that is a very long time."

If you can help Lesley, she can be contacted by telephone on 01904 631631.