I live in Ireland but back in England in 1957 I was born and adopted, and over the course of the last three years have managed to trace my birth mother and find I have three siblings, all of whom are my full brothers and sisters as both my parents subsequently married in 1959. My mother died two weeks after I first found her (we had not met) and my father had died ten years earlier. My siblings know very little of their parents past, except that our father, Derrick Maltby, born circa 1937, was a Barnados boy and he never spoke of his childhood.

My sister has recently shown me a bible given to my father with an inscription by ‘granny’ dated April 1946. Inside the cover, carefully stitched in place with thread is an old newspaper clipping.

It shows a photo of an elderly lady named Mrs Emily Kileen (may be Killeen), of Wimbledon, who has recently had to give up caring for her foster-daughters three children, who have been passed into the care of Surrey County Council. It concludes by saying all she will have for company this Christmas is a cat she found on the doorstep.

My father would have been one of those three children. We cannot find a birth certificate for him, and this is the only clue we have that he had brothers or sisters.

We would love to find out more about Mrs Emily Kileen – where she may have lived, if she had any family of her own who may still be living, who the foster daughter was, etc. I realise from some basic research that life in 1946 was quite chaotic after the war, electoral rolls were patchy, and that many records have been lost or destroyed. However this lady is the only ‘name’ we have which might unlock some of the story of my fathers life, and information you might be able to locate would be wonderful.

Many thanks

Janet Bennett

jan@odd.ie