John Prescott has revealed a happy ending to the story of the long-lost son to
whom his wife Pauline gave birth when she was an unmarried teenager.
Paul Watton, a senior army officer, who was reunited with Pauline seven years
ago after being tracked down by a reporter, has now found his missing father
in America.
The former deputy prime minister tells the full story of Pauline and Paul in
his memoirs, which are being serialised in The Sunday Times. When Pauline
was only 15½, she met an American service-man from a base near her home in
Chester.
“This bloke was 21 and married, though Pauline didn’t know that when she met
him. They’d been going out for some time when Pauline discovered she was
pregnant. Her mother went to the base, but the security people on duty
denied all knowledge of him. Said she must have the wrong name or wrong
barracks. Very soon afterwards they shipped him back to the States. Pauline
wrote to him to say she was pregnant, but he never replied.”
Pauline gave birth to Paul in January 1956, when she was 16. She initially
refused to have him adopted. Early on he caught meningitis.
“I saw him once because I went with Pauline, when we were first courting, to
visit him in hospital. It wasn’t a secret among her close friends and it
didn’t bother me in the slightest, but in the 1950s it was a matter of great
shame for an unmarried girl to have a baby. So Pauline was unusual in trying
to struggle on despite her circumstances.”
She placed him with foster parents as she had to work full-time as a
hairdresser; but when he was three she let his foster parents adopt him.
“It seemed obvious they would be able to give him a better chance in life than
Pauline could offer at the time. Of course she felt terribly guilty about
what had happened. But she had been very young and naïve when she’d fallen
pregnant. She found it very hard, thinking that she’d never hear of Paul
again. Every new year was a difficult time for her, thinking of his
birthday.”
More than 40 years later, in 2001, Prescott and his wife were on holiday when
he received a telephone call from his office. “As I picked up the receiver,
Pauline was taking my photo. She dropped her camera when I told her,
‘They’ve found Paul’.”
Their first priority was what to tell their grown-up sons, Johnathan and
David. “I think they’d heard rumours of newspapers sniffing around in search
of some baby. So when I began to tell them they assumed it was to do with
me. ‘No, it’s your mum’, I said. Pauline had worried they might think badly
of her, as you always have an idealised image of your mother. But they
cuddled and reassured her.”
A reporter from the News of the World had tracked Paul down to his military
quarters at Edinburgh Castle. “Paul opens his door and the reporter says,
‘Do you know who your mum is? The wife of the deputy prime minister!’ Paul
shuts the door and has several glasses of brandy to steady himself. It took
him some time to take in what had been said.”
Paul Watton, it emerged, was a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Military
Police. “I thought, bloody hell, a colonel. I bet he’s a Tory as well. Which
turned out true.” After telephone calls and letters, he visited the
Prescotts at their home in Hull.
“She was thrilled by how handsome he was and so wonderful and nice. I found he
was a great bloke, lovely fella, no side, straightforward, not at all the
posh high-up officer.” Prescott suspects his own mother of leaking the news
to the press: “She’s dead now. She was one of those who never approved of
what had happened to Pauline. I have a feeling she might have blurted it out
when meeting reporters over the years.”
Very recently, says Prescott, there has been a new development. One of the
first things Paul had asked Pauline was who his father was. All she knew was
his name: “He might be living anywhere, or he might be dead.”
Prescott reveals that Paul got to work on the internet and “amazingly, managed
to track him down. At least, he came up with the name and address of a man
who seemed to fit all the details”.
Paul went to America to find him: “He hired a car and drove to the address
he’d found. In the garden a man was doing his lawn. I wonder if that’s my
dad, thought Paul.
“He let down one of his tyres, then drove round the block again and stopped
his car outside the bungalow where the man was still mowing his lawn. Paul
got out of his car, looked at his flat tyre, then struggled to get out the
spare wheel.
“The man looked over his hedge and said, ‘Can I help you?’ Out he came and
together they got the spare wheel fixed. Naturally, by this time they were
chatting away to each other. “‘Are you English?’ he said to Paul which, of
course, is pretty obvious, Paul being an officer and a gentleman. ‘What a
coincidence,’ said the man. ‘I used to be stationed near Chester whenI was
in the forces. And I knew this lovely girl called Pauline’. I know, it
sounds like a corny soap, but he did say it.”
Paul took a photograph of the man, ostensibly as a memento. But he later
discovered he had no film in his camera.
“Paul returned to the man’s house and apologised for his stupidity. He
persuaded the man to pose again, though by now the man was beginning to
think it was a bit strange, this complete stranger being so keen to take his
photograph.
“Paul showed the photo to Pauline and they could see a likeness. They
discussed what to do next. Should Paul come clean and tell the man the truth
or not?
“After several months Paul decided to write to him – revealing that he was his
son. The man phoned up. He had kinda guessed something strange was going on
that day, but he’d never suspected who Paul was.
“After lots of calls and letters, Paul decided to go and meet his father
properly. The entire family turned out at the airport to meet him and they
gave him a great welcome. He could see the family resemblance right away. No
need for a DNA test.”
Paul remains friendly with his American family – he respects their privacy by
keeping his father’s identity a secret – and with the Prescotts.
“He visited us at Dorneywood a few times and Admiralty House, comes to our
family gatherings and social occasions. He was at David’s wedding in the
House of Commons.
“He likes music and dancing, as Pauline does. Pauline was amazed that one of
his favourite tunes is Unchained Melody – the original version, the one that
was top of the pops around the time he was born. Pauline was singing it all
the time that year.”
There are many hundreds of adopted people who undertake this same journey every year. For those who want to search, but do not know how to start, the charity, the British Association for Adoption & Fostering have set up www.adoptionsearchreunion.org.uk to guide them through the first steps.
Harvey Gallagher, London,
'One of the first things Paul asked Pauline was who his father is".
Almost all adoptees want to know the identity of their mother AND father. Given this fact, how can anyone imagine that people conceived through sperm/ova/embryo donation will not also want to know their parents/identity.
polly, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
And hope the memoirs contain a tribute to the foster parents who adopted the child. So often forgotten.
jane, Whittlesey, Cambs