Last year a Parliamentary Report concluded that between 1949 and 1976, around 185,000 babies of unmarried mothers were put up for adoption in England and Wales, many of these by force. For File on Four, The Skewer’s Jon Holmes investigates whether he was one of them.

Jon Holmes has always known he was adopted, but was never very interested in searching for his birth parents until results of a recent DNA test proved he was of Irish heritage and his curiosity was piqued.

A large folder arrives from Warwickshire County Council and slowly Jon begins to unpick the story of his life and the world he was born into. As secrets of Jon’s past are revealed, a Parliamentary Report by the Committee on Human Rights is published detailing shocking and vivid accounts of mothers being forced into giving up their babies by a society that outcast and shamed them at every turn.

What will Jon discover about his own family? What truths will he uncover as he speaks to mothers forced into handing their newborns over, as well as fellow adoptees about the damaging and traumatic culture he was born into?

Government has always denied any responsibility and is refusing demands for an apology, but is that really the case?

As Jon slowly finds out more about his own past, he also investigates the impact of this era and asks where does responsibility for this societal culture lie… and can it ever be repaired?


Presenter: Jon Holmes
Producer: Elizabeth Foster