Starting the hunt for other fostered children

About a year after I moved in with Mrs H I happened to see an article on fostering in a magazine in the dentist's waiting room. I wrote to the magazine asking them to forward a letter to the author of the article and as I didn't really expect them to bother it was a nice surprise when I got a long letter back.

The lady author was a former foster child like me although she was a bit older. It felt like we had quite a lot in common when she said how much she wanted to meet with other people who had been fostered and how lonely and isolated she sometimes felt. She mentioned a few ways she had tried to find young people who had shared similar experiences to her and how unsuccessful her attempts had been.

I wrote back almost straight away and then I waited and waited for a reply but one never came. I felt quite sad that she didn't want to have me as a pen friend but of course I couldn't force her to write to me could I?

A few months later I wrote to the Herts Advertiser (the local newspaper) asking readers if they knew of any organisation that people like me could join. Of course the newspaper used to get lots of letters and mine wasn't one of the ones selected to be published so that idea didn't work either. There was then a short gap until I tried again. I was in Harpenden one Saturday seeing a friend and I visited the public library. I asked a very stern lady in the reference section for help but she didn't seem very bothered about helping me and within a couple of minutes she wondered off to support somebody else.

After that I gave up looking - I have written an earlier blog entry about Mike who was fostered and who became my very best friend - but apart from him all my attempts were failures. It wasn't until decades later, after Jane had died, that I tried again. One day I will write about all the wonderful things that led to.