Northern Ireland

Alex Kane looks back on his past as an orphan for new documentary

One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC
One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC

IRISH News columnist Alex Kane looks back on his past as an orphan for a new documentary and grapples with the dilemma of whether to open his social services file, which could reveal the truth about his early life.

To mark Adoption Week, the radio programme follows Alex as he embarks on a journey back to his childhood, returning to the orphanage where he spent the first six years of his life, yet has no memory of.

Stories In Sound - Before I Was An Orphan sees the 64-year-old recall his adoption experience and tells how he still suffers night terrors about opening a door back into his childhood.

"I've often asked myself do I really need to find out why I ended up here, should I request my social services file and finally unlock what happened," he said.

The BBC Radio Ulster documentary follows Alex as he visits the Public Record Office to view information about Gleneyre Children’s Home and travels to the Portadown orphanage to see if it still exists, wondering what memories might come flooding back.

"From my point of view, I still don't know how why I ended up in the orphanage," he said.

"I sometimes wonder if right now there is a woman or a man sitting in Northern Ireland somewhere who, on the 13th August 1955, remembers giving birth to a son and know the full circumstances, what happened, why that child is no longer with them.

"But even though I ask myself, have I locked it down because it's so bad, that there's something in there that's so bad that it's a Pandora's Box - the minute you open it, you can never close it again, you can't just open a file and go oh right and close it.

"Thereafter everything else you have ever thought has been changed by the revelation."

Alex Kane was adopted when he was six years old. Picture from BBC
Alex Kane was adopted when he was six years old. Picture from BBC Alex Kane was adopted when he was six years old. Picture from BBC

One of Alex's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam in 1961, a gift that would transform his sense of trust and help sooth his trauma.

"People say where did your life begin, where did your post-adoption, post-trauma life begin - it was at the minute I saw that bear," he said.

Admiring the "middle-aged professional people who had lives of their own" before they adopted him, aged just six, he said: "Bringing in this child with all that trauma, with all that baggage, with all that not knowing what is going on inside his head, they took a huge leap of faith".

Now living with partner Kerry and a father of three children, he has "a very happy life" but is grappling with delving further into his past.

"Is it worth triggering a memory that could jeopardise that happiness," he asks.

But he also tells of his recurring nightmares almost 60 years after adoption.

"There's still hardly a fortnight goes past when I don't wake up whimpering and screaming in the bed and absolutely soaked in sweat, absolutely terrified, my heart racing and Kerry very gently rubbing the small of my back, trying to calm me down," he said.

Alex's adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC
Alex's adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC Alex's adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC

"It's always total blackness. I know I'm locked in something, whether it's a cupboard or not, and it's total blackness and I'm hammering a door, but the fear is not only that I'm hammering the door, but it's also the fear that the door is about to be opened.

"There's something absolutely awful outside that door, something so terrible that you're not going to survive it.

"And I'm screaming and occasionally Kerry says I scream 'mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy' in a child's voice - it's almost as if I have gone back in time and become this child trapped."

Stories In Sound - Before I Was An Orphan is on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday at 12.30pm.

One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC
One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC One of Alex Kane's earliest memories is of a teddy bear given to him by adoptive mum Adelaide and her husband Sam. Picture by BBC