The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames: a Memoir by Justine Cowan

 

Justine Cowan set out to trace her mother’s history and in the process discovered some answers for her mother’s frankly horrible treatment of her and, consequently, Justine’s own difficulties in forming meaningful relationships with other people.

In 1932 Eileen Weston was born to Vera, a single girl from a farm in Shropshire. Although Vera and her brother owned the farm equally, having inherited it from their parents, her brother banished her when she told him she was pregnant. She never revealed the father’s name and was, therefore, left to fend for herself. The Foundling Hospital had been established in London in 1732. Foundlings were classified as children born out of wedlock who had inherited immorality from their parents and who must be kept apart from the children of good, law-abiding citizens. In order for a baby to be accepted into the Foundling Hospital the mother had to prove, basically, that she understood that she had ‘sinned’ and that she intended to sin no more. By 1932 not much had changed at the Foundling Hospital but Vera knew that the only way for her baby to survive was to try to have her accepted by them.

The philosophy of the Foundling Hospital was to show the children no affection and not even to touch them (except for horrendous, regular beatings). The foundlings were not allowed to keep their own names and Eileen was given the name Dorothy Soames.

All of these practices have been abandoned now and the Foundling Hospital is a museum where Justine was able to obtain a file relating to Dorothy Soames, her mother, and this, along with a manuscript left by her mother formed the basis of her research. She thus gained insight into her mother’s state of mind and  how it had affected Justine throughout her own lifetime.

My great-great grandfather was a foundling in Whitby, Yorkshire and I must ask the historian in my family if she has any clues about how he came to be living on the Clarence River in northern New South Wales in (I guess) the middle of the nineteenth century.

This was not an easy read but it was an intensely interesting, thought provoking one. 5 out of 5.

Published by Virago.