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Autobiography Chronicles Experiences of a 1944 Adoptee (UK)
UNITED KINGDOM, November 15, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ — A life where privilege and abandonment issues intersect, these were author Jilly-Anne Cawthorne’s experiences following her adoption into a middle class suburban family in 1944 at
the age of six weeks.
Her autobiography, “Journey to Identity” depicts her immense struggles to come to terms with the initial abandonment, learning at the age of 8yrs of the apparent rejection by her birth mother at six weeks old.
However, after the private adoption, the author lived apparently well, attending private schools and colleges, being afforded private sports tuition, vocal coaching, piano lessons and ballet training for many years. She describes how she could have had more or less anything she wanted when she was a child growing up, the world was her oyster; and yet she constantly and consistently struggled with demons and torments due to her feelings of rejection, and cruel reminders of her failures in everything, being a typical target for the “could do better” label.
As well as her desperate need to find the truth regarding her origins – not allowed by law in the UK until the mid-1970s when adoptees could have access to their birth records – she describes how, at the age of thirteen, she was brutally told by her adoptive family that her birth mother was a “nasty person”. Interpreting this as possibly meaning she was a prostitute, Jilly-Anne was haunted by this vision for the next thirty years.
In the words of the author:
“I want my story to be ‘out there’ in the hope that it helps other adoptees, regardless of circumstances, to know that they are not alone with their deep-seated and super-glued emotions of abandonment, insecurity, anxiety and most importantly, rejection. And that being adopted into a privileged and middle class family, with all that allows financially, does not make these issues any less damaging or less destructive to the psyche.
Ultimately, Jilly-Anne’s tale is one of hope. She tells her readers:
“Never feel guilty about what you want to know, what you need to know and why you want to know. You have a right. Go forward in your search, bearing in mind you may not hear what you want to hear or see what you want to see at your journey’s end. It may not be a rainbow’s end, there be no pot of gold, but it will be the truth. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
“If your goal is to ultimately discover where you come from, the circumstances surrounding your conception and birth and to meet your mother, siblings, any blood relatives, and if this answers burning questions, it is worth every mountain you climb and every stream you ford.
“Follow every rainbow, til you find your dream.”
That dream can mean Knowledge. That dream can mean Blood. That dream can mean Satisfaction. That dream can mean Belonging. That dream can mean Peace. That dream can mean Identity. And this is what all adoptees search for: A blood-connected IDENTITY
About the Author
After years of following young ladies’ limited career options and opportunities in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Jilly-Anne Cawthorne finally found herself in a position to be able to fulfil a long-term dream, and after taking a Teacher’s Certificate and a degree in Education at Huddersfield University, she launched her own Performing Arts School, basing it in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. She was the first in the area and beyond, to offer classes not only in ballet and tap, but in choral singing, one-to-one vocal coaching, stage dancing, solo and group performance. She accepted pupils aged three to eighty-three, and was publicly acknowledged for accepting any student with learning difficulties; a First. She raised thousands of pounds through the School’s annual shows, all of which was gifted to charities of the students’ choice.
She was Musical Director, Choreographer, and Director for several Musical Theatre Groups and has been involved one way or another in over two hundred shows including those in which she herself has performed.
She taught freelance all over Yorkshire, taking Latin American courses, One Day Workshops and a regular slot as Ballroom Jive teacher at the Yorkshire Dance Centre in Leeds.
Having been honoured to be asked to be Consort to his Deputy Mayoral role for the beautiful City of Ripon, North Yorkshire, Jilly-Anne fell in love with her neighbour, Charlie Powell. They married in 2017.
She is planning a sequel to Journey to Identity; there is more to unveil.
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