During the 1950s, 60s and 70s more than 750,000 babies were adopted at birth in Britain.

Routinely they were the children of young single mothers who were encouraged to believe that 'adoption would be the best thing for the child'.

Then came the 1980s and 90s and the social stigma of being a single parent diminished. Now it was seen as best for child if they remained within their natural family.

The consequence of this - combined with readily-available abortions and better contraception, which reduced the number of unwanted pregnancies - was that far fewer babies were given up for adoption.

Opinions now appear to be marching backwards in time. Many of the children taken in care today today are those of young single women who are struggling to cope with their situation.

The plight of these women is leading politicians to question if adoption was the best solution after all. Steve McComish spoke to one woman who would argue strongly against this move after suffering years of anguish as a result of giving her baby away.

Although happily reunited with the son she 'lost' for 35 years, she tells of the enduring pain she suffered and of the support she found from others in the same boat.

It is a day which Bev will never forget. Aged 16, she was driven by her parents to a house in Nottingham where her mother took her baby son from her arms and carried him to the front door.

Bev looked on from the car as her mother rang the doorbell and then handed the baby over to a woman Bev had never met.

Then Bev's mum returned to the car and her father drove them all home.

She never had a chance to say goodbye to the son she would not see again for 35 years.

Three weeks later she tried to take her own life.

Her overdose was discovered by her mother who returned home earlier than expected.

Today Bev claims she has never got over being forced to give up her baby. She suffered from depression for years after the adoption.

She said: "I have felt emotionally crippled ever since that day. I don't think a minute goes by when I don't think about it.

"From that point on, for the rest of my life, I have felt anger and sadness about what I went through."

Bev was only 15 and in love with her first boyfriend when she discovered she was pregnant.

As she was under the legal age of consent her doctor informed the police and officers interviewed her in front of both her parents.

"They asked if I had been raped. It was all so awkward and embarrassing. My parents were deeply ashamed.

"There was a real stigma about falling pregnant in those days. People thought you were a bad girl. The truth was I got pregnant because I was so green. Bad girls knew how to avoid pregnancy."

Bev's parents told her to have the child adopted.

"I was never even asked what I wanted to do. I was only 15 so I just did as I was told. The expectation was that once I'd handed him over I would get on and forget about it. But it ruined my life."

She says her parents stopped her boyfriend from seeing her and destroyed his letters.

"I thought he didn't want to know and he thought the same about me. I still blame my parents for that. I find it very hard to forgive them. What they took away from me could never be replaced."

Bev's experience is far from unusual. Some 750,000 new-born babies were adopted in Britain during the 1950s, 60s and 70s. At the height of the trend for adoption in the mid-to late-60s there were 600 babies adopted each week.

Today the numbers are far fewer, with improvements in infertility treatment helping more childless couples to have their own babies and the welfare system offering more help for unmarried mums. In 1969 there were 27,000 adoptions of children aged two or under in Britain. By 1998 the figure had fallen to 422.

Things have come a long way since Bev had her baby in the mid-60s.

She said: "I got no help at all. No counselling or a social worker. I was just told to forget it. I lost a lot of friends because their mothers didn't want them to associate with me. The stigma was immense."

It took Bev many years to come to terms with the loss of her baby.

"It was like a bereavement, a death but without a body or a grave to mourn over."

She has never married or had any other children.

"I never met anyone I felt I could get close enough to have children with. After what I went through it was hard to let anyone in. I couldn't let the barriers down."

In her 40s Bev heard about a support group called Nottingham Birth Mothers' Support Group. Now she helps to run the organisation, which meets every six weeks.

"It is impossible to understand how a person who has been through this experience feels.

"But sharing the pain with others who went through similar ordeals does help," she said.

Her opinion is shared by many of the thousands of women who went through similar experiences.

Bev has written to Government minister Clare Short, who herself had a baby adopted, to ask for an independent public inquiry into the adoption practices of the time.

She feels she, and thousands of others, were not told of their options, or made aware of the help that would have been available to her if she had kept her son.

"I wasn't told at the time but the welfare state did offer some provision for single mothers.

"It is a disgrace that the Government operated a deliberate policy to persuade girls in my position to give up their babies - and part of that policy was not to give us the full facts.

"If I had been given the support I deserved at that time I may have been able to keep my baby, and the rest of my life would have been very different."

Bev's story has a happy ending. She made contact with her son two years ago and they now see each other regularly.

But she knows other women are still struggling through their feelings.

"You feel like there is something missing from your life, a great big hole that can never be filled."

Anyone wishing to find out more about the Nottingham Birth Mothers' Support Group should call Bev on 0115 914 3743, or Elinor on 0115 970 4253.

This story first appeared in the Nottingham Evening Post

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