Who Do You Think You Are - Lesley Sharp 14th Aug
 

At 9 p.m. on BBC1, and then repeated on Thursday night at 10:35.

Oooh I like Lesley Sharpe she is a great actress, I do know she was adopted as a small baby.

Full Monty!

Yes but she`s been in lots of programs on TV.

Episode synopsis:

Lesley Sharp was born in Manchester in 1960, and she was adopted at the age of six weeks. She was just told when she was young that she was given up for adoption because her mother wasn't able to look after her. Her adoptive mother died when Lesley was 15 and her adoptive father, Jack, died more recently. Lesley traced her birth mother Elsie Makinson 22 years ago but had not found out much about her birth father before this programme.


Lesley's birth mother had told her that she had an affair with a work colleage who was married with children and that she got pregnant by accident. The man's name was Norman Patient. Lesley once came across a newspaper photo of him playing bowls and Elsie confirmed that he was her birth father.

Lesley got a copy of her original adoption file from an adoption charity. Her original name is shown as Karen. The records show that Norman had a son and daughter with his wife, and the reason for the baby being given up for adoption is shown as "for financial reasons and best for the baby".

Lesley went to Manchester and met her birth mother's sisters Margaret and Nancy. They remembered that Elsie's pregnancy was kept a secret from the neighbours etc and that because she received no support from Norman, she went into a mother and baby home to give birth and gave the baby up for adoption before returning home. They don't think that Elsie saw Norman again, although Margaret worked as his secretary for a while without knowing that he was the father of Elsie's baby.

Lesley went to meet her half-brother and sister, Tommy and Doris, Norman's children. Norman never told them about her. Tommy was 20 and Doris 21 when Lesley was born, Doris having married in Feb 1960 when she was pregnant with her son Stephen who was born in August of that year. Lesley was shown a photo of Norman with baby Stephen, and a letter commending Norman for stopping the bus that he was driving to help a blind man cross the road.

Tommy had received a letter in the 1990's from a distant cousin John Patient of Great Easton in Essex, who has done a lot of research on the Patient family tree. Lesley went to meet John at Tilty church in Essex. Lesley and John share a 2xg-great-grandfather Charles Patient. Lesley's grandfather and great-grandfather on this line were both named Thomas Patient.


John showed Lesley the marriage certificate of Charles Patient and Hannah Bush from 16 Oct 1847. They married at Tilty church, and John also showed Lesley the baptism record of Hannah's son William Bush who was baptised on the 14th Oct in the same year, with Hannah's occupation shown as "Single Woman".

On the 1871 census Charles and Hannah are living in Great Easton, with ten children including William Patient, relationship to Charles shown as "son". However on William's marriage to Charlotte Rawlings on Oct 21 1871, his name is given as William Bush, although father's name is given as Charles Patient.

On the 1911 census Charles is aged 85, and has a wife Jane, aged 72, with their marriage shown to have lasted for 22 years. They also have Charles's nephew George Patient age 59 with them, and several boarders including two young boys, George Maybury born in Sheffield, and William George Keen born in London.

Lesley visited Essex Record Office to look at the log books for Great Easton School, which included several mentions of Dr Barnardo's children. She then visited the Ragged School Museum in East London where she met the Barnardo's archivist who showed her admission records for the two boys but was unable to show her the full records as she was not a relative.

Lesley looked at online passenger lists and found a record showing that 12 year old George Maybury arrived in Quebec, Canada, on the 23 Jun 1912, having sailed from Liverpool in a group of Barnardo's boys. She then went to Liverpool to meet an historian who gave her a phone number for George Maybury's grandson, also called George Maybury. She phoned him and arranged to meet him in Toronto. They went to Dresden in South West Ontario, to see where George was sent to work when he arrived in Canada. Barnardo's sent George's full records to his grandson and he showed these to Lesley. They included photos of George with his brother and sister when he was first taken in by Barnardo's, and of him in Essex when he was living with the Patients. There was also a report of a site visit to the Patients which said the boys were being well looked after.

George's grandson told Lesley that his grandfather had married Mary Martha Jane,the farmer's daughter at the last farm that he was sent to by Barnardo's.

What an extremely strange programme. I kept thinking I had wandered into Long Lost Family by mistake.

The usual huge leaping assumptions.

OC

Agree.
Particularly the facts about Charles Patient.

We have no real way of knowing if he was William's birth father or not. Perhaps they didn't know! He may or may not have been courting his Mother when she was heavily pregnant. He may have hated children! The list could go on and on.
I did enjoy it though.

Charles died in 1915, aged 88.

I thought it was very padded out - all of what she found could easily have fitted into a half hour programme.

It was very odd how so much of the programme focussed on the Barnardo's boys, and as has been said, so many assumptions!

Very odd programme, seemed to have no real direction to me.