GI baby Nikki Rowan-Kedge, of Pewsey, Wiltshire, paints a vivid picture of what may have happened on the night of her conception during the war-torn days of rationing, blackouts and gifts of stockings from American soldiers.

Growing up was rationed in those war weary days. Maturity achieved before time. It was an age of conflict.

A girl struggles with the first flowering of adolescence. Second hand jumpers sculptured into shape over developing breasts. Monotony duplicates itself in factory grey days.

Overalls and turban-tied scarves suppressed fashion in brown similarity. Uncovered legs feeling autumn's chill air as the factory's horn pitched its siren into the evening sky; the same sound would call them back again tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Home to dried egg, powered milk and crackling crystal radio. Churchill rallies the people and the war cabinet advised on economy.

The toilet was out in the backyard, empty except for newspaper squares, fragments of yesterday's news hanging from a sagging nail jammed into uneven, grey-washed walls.

A steep climb up dimly lit stairs to shadowy room, closing tight the blackout drapes before brushing her hair in the dim light of a paraffin lamp and climbing into cold bed.

She would stare into silent shadows, listening, listening for the moment when he would reel home, eyes red with conflict and confusion. She heard her mother's voice choke with despair at hard-earned cash sunk in ale.

The slap of cold drunken hands on tear-stained cheek, followed by animal grunting, as he slithered and squirmed on "the wife". His rights demanded, her rights yielded to duty.

Is this marriage, this unholy matrimony? It was how it used to be.

In sifted moonlight she dreamed through the blackout of better things, sunshine, an end to war, pretty dresses, candlelight and silk stockings.

Aircraft moaned overhead, a cat wailed in the yard and his jabbing snores penetrated the walls of darkness, while her mother sobbed into an indifferent pillow.

Saturday night was dance night. The dance band boomed brassily on a stage draped with pink curtains strangled by nicotine yellow cord. A pair of dried flower arrangements tottered at either end of the stage.

Glittering in the centre of a yellow plastered ceiling, in suspended animation spun a silver mirrored ball bouncing smoke-blue beams from searching spotlights that stalked the dance floor.

Girls lined one side of the room, the air heady with cheap perfume, talcum powder and smoke. Freshly styled hair hung in waves tumbling over shapely shoulders.

Tightly fitting dresses embraced teenage figures, and a gesturing singer crooned into a microphone, singing of love and moonlight.

Self-conscious boys in ill-fitting Saturday suits stood sentinel clutching ale fingered glasses, woodbines drooping from beery lips, smoke curling aimlessly burning like empty words stubbed into a trusting heart. They drank their courage from a glass; their breath reeled before them.

In they came, all brashness and brass buttons, armed with weapons of seduction. She was 16. He was smart and stylish in his GI's uniform; resistance must have been difficult for any young woman during those war-torn years.

Local lads skulked, sulking in their self-imposed trench of clumsiness and reserve, watching groups of American soldiers dazzling deprived eyes with gifts of silk stockings, and chocolate, watching as "their girls" willingly received bullets of seduction.

The night lurched on its way in hazy pleasure, couples dancing, rocking wildly and rolling recklessly, until their senses swirled in a blur of promises, unaware they were being primed for the assault as a newly discovered country, fresh and unspoilt; a virgin land soon to be pillaged and spoiled.

The Last Waltz signalled the advance. Whispering words thudded into grateful ears, the barrage of hollow promises primed and fired, hitting their target.

The city straggled in the moonlight; couples huddled in dark doorways, some retreated to the back seat of a waiting car. The assault had begun.

I hope she was in a car, my mother, my very young mother. The moonlit air trembled with cold while the pale moon looked down impassively on the shifting shadows below.

So many hopes and desires, were they coming true at last?

With gratitude for stockings and chocolate she accepted this brave GI, feeling the roughness of his uniform pricking through her thin cotton dress.

I wonder what promises he made in return? Maybe stockings were enough. She would have waited for him, if he promised to come back.

I hope she was somewhere warm, not by some hard unfeeling wall. She might well have been, the wall a symbol of the man, hard, abrasive and unattainable.

I used to wonder if she was thinking of America and a new life as she smoothed the creases from her dress, which had been ironed and smooth only a few hours ago.

What was she thinking as she picked up the stockings that lay like a crumpled package of broken dreams fast fading in the light of day, a scattering of broken promises.

Then came the isolation of guilt, turned out of home for challenging the hypocrisy of the age, turning nine-months later into a sea of guilt and pain.

This is the story of my birth, dropped by chance, out of unholy wedlock into the shadows of shame. I wonder if regrets ever rise from the secret lonely place of her memory.

Fifty-five years have passed since the date of my adoption. Fifty-five years of wondering, then forgetting, only to remember again.

I was strictly but kindly brought up by my adoptive parents, an only child, my father away working most of the time. I wish I had known him better.

As a child, we lived in Asylum Street, a backwater of Leicester. Today it is a car park; all those years bulldozed away in a few weeks.

My dad has gone now, died of a heart attack on the very day of his retirement after 30 years in a cement factory. My mother carried on, sorrowfully, for another 20 empty years.

She never got over it, the way he went, not saying goodbye or anything. She waited five hours after his normal time of coming home before anyone told her what had happened.

She used to say he was her only friend. Four years ago she also died; she wanted to go. I wonder if my dad was waiting for her?

Three weeks ago I remembered, and registered with the adoption contact register. She might have wondered what had happened to me, she still might be interested. She did marry and have a family.

I wonder if they know about me. I would like to meet her, my birth mother, and ask the name of that dashing GI all those years ago and just to say it's okay.