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Long Lost Family: Teen mum forced to put baby up for adoption reunited with daughter 60 years on

Mirror Online 3 days ago

Roslynne Webb was just 16 when she was forced to give up her baby daughter - almost 60 years later she has been reunited with her in 'the best day ever'

Ros Webb reunited, meeting for the first time in Cornwall with her birth daughter Lyndsey
Ros Webb reunited, meeting for the first time in Cornwall with her birth daughter Lyndsey

A mother forced to put her child up for adoption as a teenager has been reunited with her nearly 60 years later in "the best day ever".

Roslynne Webb was 16-years-old when she became pregnant, and her strict parents decided the child must be adopted. Looking back she said: "The love remains. It's been with me since the day she was born. she's in my heart and my head.

"As teenagers during the Sixties everything was going on. It was a very wayward kind of living and I was always out and about. I became pregnant. When my parents found out about the pregnancy, my mother decided from then on, what was going to happen."

Her mother didn't want anyone to know about the pregnancy and so Ros was sent almost 100 miles away from her home in Coventry to a Church of England mother and baby home in London. She gave birth and was allowed to stay with her baby for over six weeks, but not allowed to take a photo.

Pictured: (l-r) Nicky Campbell with Lyndsey Courtney (searcher Ros Webb’s daughter)
Long Long Family's Nicky Campbell with Lyndsey (searcher Ros Webb’s daughter)

Ros added: "She was just gorgeous. She had a fair, sweet face. It was just the best thing ever. I tried to savour every minute because I knew that it wasn't going to be permanent. You are told to pack things and go into the sitting room and wait. The sister came to me and she said you can go and fetch the baby now and bring her down.

"I went up to the nursery and I picked her up and I held her. I told her I loved her and she would be taken care of. I gave it to the sister with all her things. And that's the last time I saw her. It was really hard and it's still hard now when I think about it, the emotion is raw and the feelings are raw. To find Christine, would just mean everything."

Ros, 76, lives in Cornwall with husband Tony and never went on to have any more children. She contacted ITV's Long Lost Family in the hope they could put her in touch with her daughter, who she called Christine. Thankfully show hosts Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell and the team working on the series have good news for Ros, tracking down her daughter, now called Lyndsey. She was adopted by a vicar and his wife in Kent and enjoyed a good childhood.

Lyndsey and ros on a bench
Ros and Lyndsey reunited after 60 years

The show gives both women lots of information and photos about each other. Ros even wrote a letter to her 59-year-old daughter telling her: "knowing that you're on this earth brings me to life and is enough. I don't want to intrude." However, Lyndsey then agrees to meet up and after a long tearful hug, Ros said: "You are absolutely beautiful. I can't believe this is happening. I just want to look at you."

And Lyndsey said: "I never thought this would happen. What you did was incredibly brave. And I've always thought that, but it wasn't until I had my first child. I couldn't imagine giving him up. It must have been so painful." Ros replies: "It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do."

She then gives her daughter a gold bracelet, explaining she wasn't able to buy her one when she was small. Ros added: "I am full of joy and happiness, I want to stand on that step and shout to everybody 'I have met her, I have met my daughter'."

Lyndsey also revealed she has three children of her own. And at the end of the programme it revealed the pair have remained in contact and Ros will meet her grandchildren later this year. Lyndsey said: "It went amazingly well. It was just the best day of my life."

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