The Baby Laundry for Unmarried Mothers

I'd been denied saying goodbye to my baby, denied that last chance to stroke his cheek and feel his fingers grip mine, to kiss his tiny mouth in loving farewell...

In 1963, Angela Brown was 19 and enjoying her first job working in the City of London, when her life turned upside down. A brief fling with a charismatic charmer left her pregnant, unmarried and facing a stark future. Not yet 21, she was still under the governance of her parents, strict Catholics who insisted she have the baby in secret and then put it up for adoption.

Forced to leave her job and her family, Angela was sent to a convent in Essex for her confinement. Run like a Victorian workhouse, she was vilified by the nuns for her wickedness'. After a terrifying labour with no pain relief, Angela gave birth to a beautiful son, Paul. At eight weeks he was taken from her and forcibly put up for adoption, leaving Angela heartbroken. Not a day went by without Angela thinking about him. Then, thirty years later, a letter came. It was from Paul, and a reunion was arranged.

This vital slice of social history is a shocking reminder of how attitudes have changed around the issue of single motherhood since the carly 1960s. It is also an honest, heartfelt memoir that explores the closest of human bonds.