Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mea podcast. Mama Miya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on Hello, I'm mea Friedman and it's hot
Speaker 1: pod Summer. The team at Mum and Maya are bringing
Speaker 1: you hours and hours of extra podcasts in your ears
Speaker 1: to get you through your road trips, your time at
Speaker 1: the beach, you're tiding up the house, maybe you're just
Speaker 1: lying around having a snooze and you need something to
Speaker 1: fall asleep to. Whatever it is, we are here in
Speaker 1: your ears to be your summer friends, and at no filter.
Speaker 1: We've selected some of our most popular, most engaging, most
Speaker 1: memorable stories to share with you. And the story that
Speaker 1: I'm bringing you from the vault today is from a
Speaker 1: conversation I had with Susan Francis in twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: it's really hard to give you an overview about it
Speaker 1: without giving you spoilers because it's just one of those
Speaker 1: stories that you really have to hear it to believe it.
Speaker 1: It begins with uncovering the mystery of her biological parents
Speaker 1: and then it just is towyt staffter twist. Have a listen,
Speaker 1: Tell me what you think.
Speaker 2: We were sitting there, and I remember the way Truth
Speaker 2: came over to give us coffee, and she said something like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's so nice for two sisters to have time to
Speaker 2: have coffee together. So it was the first time anyone
Speaker 2: had acknowledged physical appearance between me and somebody else, and
Speaker 2: also the biological link that we shared, so it was amazing.
Speaker 2: She was a very soft person, and she felt like
Speaker 2: my sister. To tell you, the.
Speaker 1: Truth never has the cliche truth is stranger than fiction
Speaker 1: applied more than to the life of the woman that
Speaker 1: you're about to meet. You really couldn't make Susan Francis's
Speaker 1: life up. It is that extraordinary. It begins with an
Speaker 1: adoption story and miss of her biological parents. It includes
Speaker 1: a secret sister, a heartbreaking confrontation, a tragedy, unexpected love,
Speaker 1: and a series of events that were so dramatic that
Speaker 1: she had to write them down in a memoir just
Speaker 1: to make sense of them. It's called The Love That Remains,
Speaker 1: and Susan is such a wonderful and engaging storyteller with
Speaker 1: such a big story to tell, and she tells it
Speaker 1: so beautifully and warmly. I didn't want to skip any
Speaker 1: of the bits so to do her story and her justice.
Speaker 1: This No Filter is actually going to be in two parts.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about the mystery of Susan's adoption, and
Speaker 1: it's an adoption and reunion story unlike any you've heard before.
Speaker 2: Here's Susan Francis.
Speaker 1: Susan, when did you find out that you were adopted?
Speaker 2: I always knew I was adopted. I can't remember when
Speaker 2: Mum and Dad first told me, but I always knew,
Speaker 2: and I always remember them saying to me, you were adopted,
Speaker 2: but you're very special. We especially went to get you.
Speaker 2: We wanted you so badly. We went to the doctor
Speaker 2: and we got you. So I always knew, but I
Speaker 2: didn't to begin with, consider it a negative thing.
Speaker 1: I literally did go to the doctor and get you.
Speaker 2: Didn't they literally did.
Speaker 1: They were very different adoption now than it was in
Speaker 1: the late fifties.
Speaker 2: Sixty one, nineteen seventy one. It's very different now. They
Speaker 2: literally so. Mum and dad worked for an accounting firm,
Speaker 2: so Dad was working of a night time. They're working
Speaker 2: during the day, working very very hard, and the people
Speaker 2: that they worked for knew the doctor and knew that
Speaker 2: Mom and Dad couldn't have children. So the doctor had
Speaker 2: a baby who was me available available, that's right in
Speaker 2: the hospital, and mom and dad just turned up one
Speaker 2: Saturday morning on the recommendation of the people that they
Speaker 2: worked for, and literally the doctor handed me over and
Speaker 2: they took me home. And that was it. Like it's
Speaker 2: bizarre and really like it's changed, obviously, as it should,
Speaker 2: but that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: Many years later, you found you tracked down your biological mother.
Speaker 1: Was she happy to see you, happy.
Speaker 2: To hear from you?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: No, she was not. In nineteen ninety two, I think
Speaker 2: it was they changed the legislation and so people who'd
Speaker 2: been adopted could get their real adoption certificate. And I
Speaker 2: was really angry about the fact that I could not
Speaker 2: find out who I was. I couldn't understand why mothers
Speaker 2: were given the preference over the children, why mother's identities
Speaker 2: were hidden, and therefore children's identities had to be hidden.
Speaker 2: And as I grew older and my dad got sick
Speaker 2: with cancer, I had my own son, and that all
Speaker 2: happened around about the same time. And because Dad was dying,
Speaker 2: I started to think, well, these people who had me
Speaker 2: might also be dying. And then they changed the legislation.
Speaker 2: I was almost first in line to get my certificate.
Speaker 2: There was my mother's maiden name, there was her place
Speaker 2: of birth, and I immediately started looking and eventually found
Speaker 2: her sister, who said to me on the phone, she
Speaker 2: will not be happy to hear from you.
Speaker 1: And I had did that fail?
Speaker 2: I suppose. I kidded myself thinking that I know I
Speaker 2: was right with this. You know, I know that she
Speaker 2: might not want to. I kidded myself thinking that it
Speaker 2: would be all right. And I kidded myself thinking that
Speaker 2: what I was really after was just information, But of
Speaker 2: course underneath there was also some kind of wish for
Speaker 2: some kind of relationship, some kind of acknowledgment, because I
Speaker 2: remember when I was on the phone to her, when
Speaker 2: I rang.
Speaker 1: What was that phone like? How did you gear yourself
Speaker 1: up to make that phone call? Where were you?
Speaker 2: So I was living so my dad. I think my
Speaker 2: dad had either just passed or he was very close
Speaker 2: to passing away, and I'd move back to Newcastle to
Speaker 2: help my mum look after him because he wanted to
Speaker 2: die at home. And I had John O, who was
Speaker 2: four years old, and during the week we were living
Speaker 2: in this little flat in Lambton in Newcastle, and I
Speaker 2: would go out and look after Dad at Mum's house
Speaker 2: and then Mum would look after him on the weekend.
Speaker 2: And Mom came to my flat in Newcastle and she
Speaker 2: was really supportive and like, I didn't think about it
Speaker 2: a lot. I just desperately wanted to know and I
Speaker 2: should like, I know, I shouldn't have done it, but
Speaker 2: I did. I just rang.
Speaker 1: And what was the response on the other It.
Speaker 2: Was really really awful. I can't tell you how awful
Speaker 2: it was. She she was screaming at me, saying, I
Speaker 2: don't want to know who you are. I put that
Speaker 2: time behind me. That was the worst time of my life.
Speaker 2: I don't want to know who you are. I don't
Speaker 2: want to know anything about you. And she kept calling
Speaker 2: me miss Hull. I don't want to know who you are,
Speaker 2: Miss Hull. I don't want to know about your child.
Speaker 2: I don't want to know who you are. And she
Speaker 2: was so cold and so separate, and it felt as
Speaker 2: if it felt as if I was to blame for
Speaker 2: this terrible thing that had happened to her. And she
Speaker 2: also made me feel really cheap, and I'm not quite
Speaker 2: sure I do remember. Actually I was going to say.
Speaker 2: I can't remember why she made me feel cheap, but
Speaker 2: one of the things she said to me was, if
Speaker 2: you are money, you're not going to get it. And
Speaker 2: we have very good lawyers and in fact, and I
Speaker 2: remember thinking like my mum and dad were quite well
Speaker 2: off by that time. They'd worked very hard. And I
Speaker 2: had already done my undergraduate degree and I was just
Speaker 2: about to do a master's degree, and I had John
Speaker 2: O and I consider myself a certain kind of person.
Speaker 2: That sounds awful, but I did. And she made me
Speaker 2: feel like like cheap and grabby, yeah, and unworthy. And
Speaker 2: I remember saying to her, I just want to know
Speaker 2: where I'm from, who my father is, what the medical
Speaker 2: background is, what my cultural background is, what the story is.
Speaker 1: Who you are, yeah, who I am, where you came from?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And she just couldn't get past It felt to
Speaker 2: me like I feel sometimes that maybe I shouldn't put
Speaker 2: it down too much because she has her own story.
Speaker 2: But I felt it was very much about her and
Speaker 2: that this was about something she wanted to forget, and
Speaker 2: I was that thing that she wanted to that event
Speaker 2: in her life.
Speaker 1: How did you react?
Speaker 2: So I immediately fell into the chair and started crying.
Speaker 2: And I wrote about this in the book. Mum just
Speaker 2: picked up the phone, grabbed and she just kept saying
Speaker 2: over and over and over again, Susan's a good girl.
Speaker 2: She's a good girl. She just wants to know where
Speaker 2: she comes from.
Speaker 1: And that broke my heart, that idea of I mean,
Speaker 1: every child in moments fantasizes that they might be adopted
Speaker 1: and there's this perfect mother out there. You really were adopted,
Speaker 1: and of course I imagine that you had fantasies and thoughts
Speaker 1: about what she might be like and what that reunion
Speaker 1: might be like, and so many of the adoption stories
Speaker 1: we hear are very positive ones. How do you recover
Speaker 1: from that?
Speaker 2: So I got really angry.
Speaker 1: So after the grief, yeah, after.
Speaker 2: And I suppose it was a few months, like it's
Speaker 2: well over twenty years now, it's almost thirty years.
Speaker 1: So you're in your late twenties.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just had JOHNO.
Speaker 1: So he was and you would have been proud, like
Speaker 1: you would have proud and Mom, tonight, that is a
Speaker 1: beautiful boy. And I'm successful and I'm getting my masters.
Speaker 2: Be proud of me, and you know, my dad's dying,
Speaker 2: so it's really important to me. I've had my child
Speaker 2: and on the other hand, my dad is dying, so
Speaker 2: it's this pivotal moment in my life. And John I
Speaker 2: didn't really look like me, and it was very very
Speaker 2: important to me to see somebody else who looked like me,
Speaker 2: because you kind of feel like you've just been made
Speaker 2: up and put in this spot and there's nothing behind you.
Speaker 2: You've just been plumped down and there's nothing tethering you
Speaker 2: to anywhere. And I was so proud of John and
Speaker 2: as a mother, I was quite I couldn't breastfeed, so
Speaker 2: I remember, you know, I would hold up the little
Speaker 2: scoops of formula and use the knife and just make
Speaker 2: them perfect across because it was so important to me
Speaker 2: that JOHNO had everything like he was everything to me,
Speaker 2: and so my love for him compared to her lack
Speaker 2: of love for me and her reaction to me, the
Speaker 2: juxtaposition was extraordinary.
Speaker 1: So you turned up on her doorstep, I truly laugh.
Speaker 1: It's terrible, but with his like thinking now you think, well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't a great idea. No it wasn't, but it
Speaker 1: was an act of desperation.
Speaker 2: But it was twenty years later, so I wrote her
Speaker 2: a letter after that first phone call in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: I'm going to say and in my letter, I was
Speaker 2: furious and I said, I have rights, you need to
Speaker 2: tell me these things. And that's when she sent me
Speaker 2: the letter back saying, oh, your father's an IRA fundraiser.
Speaker 2: He and I traveled all around australia're raising money. We
Speaker 2: stopped at Newcastle, you know, to have you and then
Speaker 2: we kept going around and.
Speaker 1: The IRA, for people who don't know, is it like
Speaker 1: a terrorist organization, a domestic terrorist organization in Ireland. Yes,
Speaker 1: So that was that. That's a weird story.
Speaker 2: That is such a weird story. And I didn't even
Speaker 2: know that existed. I knew it existed in America because
Speaker 2: a lot of Irish people had gone to America, but
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that happened in the sixties in Australia.
Speaker 2: So that whole letter to me felt like a total fabrication,
Speaker 2: that she was just making this story up just to
Speaker 2: kind of fod me off. And so after that letter,
Speaker 2: and I could never find him. She thought he was
Speaker 2: this name or that name, and I looked and could
Speaker 2: never find him. So I gave up. I gave up
Speaker 2: till twenty twelve, because I thought I'm never going to
Speaker 2: find anything. I certainly could not face her again. She
Speaker 2: really intimidated me, and she really frightened me and I
Speaker 2: and she made me feel so cheap. Cheap's the only
Speaker 2: word I can I can think to use. So I
Speaker 2: didn't want to face her again, and yet you did so.
Speaker 2: Twenty years later, things were very different. Liz, my best friend,
Speaker 2: was dying, and that was terrible. Sorry, you do have
Speaker 2: an ability to put your spot, put your finger on
Speaker 2: a spot.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: If no, it's all right. So she was dying, and
Speaker 2: my mum had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and I met
Speaker 2: Waine and Wayne said, let's go to Spain. I love you.
Speaker 2: I can give you everything you want. And I realized,
Speaker 2: because Liza died and because Mum was so sick, that
Speaker 2: if I didn't try one last time, I would never know.
Speaker 2: And he was an incredibly strong man, and he said,
Speaker 2: I've got you back. We'll go up there, we'll sort
Speaker 2: it out a little bit. All fine.
Speaker 1: I don't had you guys been together at this time.
Speaker 2: Not very long. He was also a Gemini and probably
Speaker 2: more impulsive than me. If had anything online he was
Speaker 2: looking just for someone to have dinner with, and I
Speaker 2: suppose I was looking for a bit of diversion. Work
Speaker 2: was really hard, the children's lives were very hard, and
Speaker 2: so I went online and he went online at the
Speaker 2: same time. And I was out in the Central West
Speaker 2: and he was in Orange and in that Actually just
Speaker 2: little tip if anyone's looking to meet someone, Central West
Speaker 2: is a great place because there's more men than there
Speaker 2: are women.
Speaker 1: So I was lucky.
Speaker 2: I was just in the right place at the right time,
Speaker 2: and lucky he was, thank you. So yeah, we met
Speaker 2: online and we met physically very soon afterwards.
Speaker 1: How old were you both when you met?
Speaker 2: So, I'm not real good with maths, but I think
Speaker 2: I was around about fifty two fifty three and he
Speaker 2: was fifty seven or fifty eight.
Speaker 1: So you both lived life, you had you had one child,
Speaker 1: or you'd just one chat so you'd had a previous relationship, yes,
Speaker 1: and he what did you know about his background?
Speaker 2: Not a lot. I really jumped in with both feet.
Speaker 2: He told me a little bit about his background, about
Speaker 2: him growing up in New Guinea and how abusive his
Speaker 2: father had been to him. But really maybe it was
Speaker 2: one conversation. Maybe two, but he obviously didn't want to
Speaker 2: talk about it, and I didn't want to push him.
Speaker 2: And the things that he told me about his father,
Speaker 2: like literally the children were brought back to Australia. Wayne
Speaker 2: was five, I think, and his younger brother and maybe
Speaker 2: one other child were brought to Australia and by Wayne's
Speaker 2: mother and the father, who was very dominant in the
Speaker 2: Highlands in New Guinea. He made one of his relatives
Speaker 2: take the children out for an afternoon, so Wayne's mom
Speaker 2: thought they were going for ice cream and literally put
Speaker 2: them on the plane and took them back to New Guinea.
Speaker 2: And I remember my overwhelming when he told me that
Speaker 2: was for his mother because when she went back to
Speaker 2: New Guinea, the father and the way things were back
Speaker 2: then legally and socially, he made sure that she could
Speaker 2: not access the children.
Speaker 1: Wow. So Wayne and his siblings grew up without access
Speaker 1: to their mum.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of shared sort of trauma among you both.
Speaker 1: And he then backed you to go and visit your
Speaker 1: mother in person before you you both decided to move
Speaker 1: to Granada to start this new life.
Speaker 2: And also my father and face some other people that
Speaker 2: I probably needed to face. I was always I think,
Speaker 2: growing up adopted, you are a people pleaser. I'm still
Speaker 2: a people pleaser, although I'm trying really hard.
Speaker 1: To Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's well documented that children who are adopted are
Speaker 2: terrified of being sent back. So they're given to somebody.
Speaker 2: They have to behave in the very best way they
Speaker 2: can and do everything right so that they're kept and break.
Speaker 2: There's study study studies about this, Like it's a really
Speaker 2: well known well within people who study that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So all your life you are trying really hard to
Speaker 2: be loved, That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: What was it like setting eyes on your mother for
Speaker 1: that first time? How did you get the courage to
Speaker 1: knock on her door?
Speaker 2: I felt I got the courage, and I remember as
Speaker 2: I was running across the road, like I was so
Speaker 2: terrified because I was really scared of her. But I
Speaker 2: also knew that if I didn't do it, I would
Speaker 2: never do it and I would never know, you know,
Speaker 2: so I really really had to do it, even though
Speaker 2: I was so scared, and it was amazing seeing somebody
Speaker 2: that looked like me for a start, she really did.
Speaker 2: There were resemblances, you know, the size of our shoulders out,
Speaker 2: coloring her eyes so that that was extraordinary to see
Speaker 2: somebody who looked like me. But also I could read
Speaker 2: her expression, and it was both an amazing thing and
Speaker 2: a terrible thing.
Speaker 1: She didn't know you were coming.
Speaker 2: No, she didn't, and that was bad. I know that
Speaker 2: was bad.
Speaker 1: You must have still had fantasies of her throwing her
Speaker 1: arms around you, and.
Speaker 2: She yeah, I did. And I thought, I thought, if
Speaker 2: I face her, if she doesn't know I'm coming, and
Speaker 2: I face her, she'll have to tell me stuff. You know,
Speaker 2: She'll have to give me the information that I want,
Speaker 2: because I still knew nothing. You know, twenty years later,
Speaker 2: and I still knew nothing because the letter had seemed
Speaker 2: so so much of a fantasy, and because I could
Speaker 2: never find my father of the names that she'd given me.
Speaker 1: Did she invite you inside?
Speaker 2: Oh god no. She slammed the door in my face,
Speaker 2: and after giving me the name of a man who
Speaker 2: she claimed was my father, I remember her husband stood there.
Speaker 2: We were in the rain on outside. There was screaming, and.
Speaker 1: It was like.
Speaker 2: On one side of the fence was she and on
Speaker 2: the other side of the fence was me. And I
Speaker 2: realized that I was never going to get more than
Speaker 2: what she was giving me that afternoon, which was the
Speaker 2: name supposedly of my father.
Speaker 1: And it was a different name to the one that
Speaker 1: she'd given you before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a different name to the one she'd
Speaker 2: given me in the letter. But by this time we
Speaker 2: had Google. So when she'd first given me all those names,
Speaker 2: that was where I would go to the post office
Speaker 2: and look because we had no way of checking those names.
Speaker 2: I had no name, no way of checking those names.
Speaker 2: So you go through all the postbooks at the post office.
Speaker 2: But now I had Google, so raceback, opened the laptop.
Speaker 2: There he is the man that she said was my father, famous,
Speaker 2: semi famous, certainly famous enough to be on Google on
Speaker 2: the internet. AFL player from Melbourne. And then you know,
Speaker 2: checking a little bit more. Yes, he'd been in the
Speaker 2: same place as my mother around about the same time
Speaker 2: as I was born. He was playing country football. So
Speaker 2: you know that's it there. I think I have the story.
Speaker 2: But he wasn't your dad, No, he wasn't. It's hard too,
Speaker 2: and it's funny. I know there are parts that are funny.
Speaker 1: Yes, because what's extraordinary and your right so beautifully about
Speaker 1: this in the book is that you discover that your
Speaker 1: mother had actually had two daughters within eighteen months adopted
Speaker 1: them both out. They were both named Susan, and this
Speaker 1: was the father of the other Susan who she'd had
Speaker 1: and adopted out.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: So you went on to meet the other Susan who
Speaker 1: was your sister? What was that like?
Speaker 2: So she she actually looked more like me than my mother.
Speaker 2: So even sitting there. I went to Melbourne and we
Speaker 2: had coffee and we were sitting there and I remember
Speaker 2: the waitress came over to get us coffee and she
Speaker 2: said something like, oh, it's so nice for two sisters
Speaker 2: to have time to have coffee together. So it was
Speaker 2: the first time anyone had acknowledged physical appearance between me
Speaker 2: and somebody else, and also the biological link that we shared.
Speaker 2: So it was amazing. She was a very soft person
Speaker 2: and she felt like my sister. To tell you the truth,
Speaker 2: we did understand each other to a certain extent, but
Speaker 2: she didn't have the last for knowledge like I did.
Speaker 2: She didn't want to know about our mother. She didn't
Speaker 2: even want to know the name of her father, who
Speaker 2: I knew, but she did not know.
Speaker 1: Had she had a similar experience with your mother of
Speaker 1: being rejected or she hadn't even tried.
Speaker 2: No, she hadn't tried. But she had much more documentation
Speaker 2: than what I had. There was a whole lot of
Speaker 2: documentation from the hospital at the time where she'd been relinquished,
Speaker 2: where our mother's parents, our grandparents had wanted to adopt her.
Speaker 2: Even my mother's sister had wanted to adopt the other Susan,
Speaker 2: but our mother didn't want that. She wanted Susan gone. Gone, yes, gone.
Speaker 2: And so from those notes, the other Susan knew that
Speaker 2: in the woman that I call my birth mother in
Speaker 2: the story wasn't a very nice woman. She'd already deduced that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she protected herself by not she did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she respect that and I respect that. At
Speaker 2: the end of the conversation, I said to it, look,
Speaker 2: I know who your father is because I thought he
Speaker 2: was my father, and she declined, knowing she didn't want
Speaker 2: that information, and I.
Speaker 1: Ended, I know, imagine having that information right there at
Speaker 1: your fingertips and saying no, I don't, I don't want that.
Speaker 2: I know. It was really like I understand, and I
Speaker 2: don't understand. It's not me, but it's definitely it was
Speaker 2: definitely her, and so we met and we connected and
Speaker 2: I saw somebody who you know, we could have almost
Speaker 2: been twins.
Speaker 1: How did that relationship develop?
Speaker 2: No, so in a month when I went so, I
Speaker 2: thought I'd give her some time. I rang back, but no,
Speaker 2: that she didn't want any more contact with me.
Speaker 1: That must have been heart break on heart break on heart.
Speaker 2: Right now, look, I respect her because at least she
Speaker 2: met me and at least we talked, and at least
Speaker 2: we made that connection, and then she made a decision.
Speaker 2: Not like my mother who just said no from the
Speaker 2: outset and would not move in her position at all.
Speaker 2: Susan at least met me and we talked, and that
Speaker 2: she explained why she So there's two kinds of people
Speaker 2: who are adopted. There are the people like me who
Speaker 2: are desperate to know, and then there are the other
Speaker 2: kind of people who want to stay where they are.
Speaker 2: They don't want to hurt the people who've adopted them.
Speaker 2: They don't want to risk that second rejection. Just happy
Speaker 2: with what I've got. I'm going to be thankful for
Speaker 2: what I've got. I'm going to.
Speaker 1: Stay here because it's a bit complicating factor, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's like there's you, and then there's JOHNO. And then
Speaker 1: there's Wayne, and then there's your Like, it's a lot
Speaker 1: to take on. I've seen it in friends of mine
Speaker 1: who've discovered siblings. It can be a wonderful thing, but
Speaker 1: it's it's highly disrupting whatever way you look at it.
Speaker 2: And it's highly complex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so emotional.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, I sounds awful, but I feel
Speaker 2: like I got from her what it was I was
Speaker 2: looking for. I found her, I met her, I saw
Speaker 2: the resemblance. I found out what her story was, and
Speaker 2: so that satisfied me.
Speaker 1: You did eventually find your father and your biological father,
Speaker 1: and Wayne came with you to meet him. He was
Speaker 1: in Perth, wasn't he?
Speaker 2: He was? He was in Perth. And I would never
Speaker 2: have met him other than the fact that my other
Speaker 2: so complicated, my other stepsister or half sister, who'd been
Speaker 2: a baby when he'd left his wife and the children
Speaker 2: that he'd already had to run around Australia with my
Speaker 2: biological mother. So he left children behind when he ran off,
Speaker 2: and he left some kind of criminal past behind. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I contacted her because I eventually found out his former
Speaker 2: name looking for people with his former name. There she was,
Speaker 2: She said to me, Mary is her name. She said,
Speaker 2: he's living in Perth and he's still living under an alias.
Speaker 2: So he had been with my mother when they'd been
Speaker 2: traveling around Australia. He'd been under an alias because he
Speaker 2: was running away from a criminal past and because he
Speaker 2: was working for the IRA.
Speaker 1: So that was true. That was true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was true. And he was still under an alias.
Speaker 2: So I would never ever have found him unless Mary
Speaker 2: had told me what his alias was.
Speaker 1: And he turned very complicated. Well, he turned out to
Speaker 1: be a total creep.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was awful. So he said, we'll meet in
Speaker 2: this pub at lunchtime. It'll be quiet, we'll be able
Speaker 2: to talk. And so Wayne and I walked into this
Speaker 2: pub and like literally there were people spilling out onto
Speaker 2: the road. There was an Irish band playing, there were
Speaker 2: tourists there. It was so crowded, and I never thought
Speaker 2: in a million years we would find him more chat
Speaker 2: and I remember looking across the room and it was
Speaker 2: like when you look at somebody you know now and
Speaker 2: there's an old photograph there from when they were children,
Speaker 2: and you can see the resemblance still, you know, it's
Speaker 2: still there, and as soon as I looked at him,
Speaker 2: I knew him. And I have a photograph of he
Speaker 2: and I together and the resemblance. He's quite strong, but
Speaker 2: he was such a sleeze bag and he was an asshole.
Speaker 1: He was a.
Speaker 2: Liar, kind of sitting on the fence. Half of him
Speaker 2: was saying, yes, I was with her in Newcastle. Yes,
Speaker 2: she told me that she was pregnant. But no, she
Speaker 2: told me that she got it seen to were his words,
Speaker 2: and those words are burned into my brain and I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: here I am. She obviously didn't get it seen too.
Speaker 2: Because you and her were together in a car, traveling
Speaker 2: around Australia together, running from the police, obviously living in
Speaker 2: very tight circumstances. How could you not know that she'd
Speaker 2: had a child? You know?
Speaker 1: So? And he weirdly like almost tried to crack onto you.
Speaker 2: Yeah he did.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It's disgusting. And Mary had said to me from Melbourne
Speaker 2: that he was that's his daughter, Yeah, that's his your
Speaker 2: my heart, yeah, sister, yeah, so that is his daughter.
Speaker 1: Had she warned you that he was not free?
Speaker 2: She had, she had, and in fact, so had my
Speaker 2: biological mother. In that first letter she had said that
Speaker 2: he was not a very nice man, and you still hope. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you still hope, and you still think, well, maybe those
Speaker 2: people's judgments aren't one hundred percent. But I also I
Speaker 2: really like, I was really curious about the IRA thing,
Speaker 2: and you know, is this whole story about them traveling
Speaker 2: around Australia on the run, you know, like it's such
Speaker 2: a fancy, fanciful story, and it was true. And I
Speaker 2: got that from him. I got that information from him.
Speaker 2: It was true, and I do believe he was my father,
Speaker 2: like there's no doubt. So yeah, with all of.
Speaker 1: This, I guess behind you that's still still swirling around
Speaker 1: and very much present. You and Wayne decided to move
Speaker 1: to Spain to Granada. Why did How long had you
Speaker 1: been together? And that's that's a big move to make.
Speaker 2: It's a massive move. What I didn't realize first up
Speaker 2: was that when it had cancer previously and had recovered,
Speaker 2: and also I think it had heart issues, but he
Speaker 2: didn't really talk about it. So for him, it was
Speaker 2: very much about living in the moment. He felt that
Speaker 2: he'd finally found a woman that he could love and
Speaker 2: who would love him. He talked about me being the
Speaker 2: love of his life, and of course that's what That's
Speaker 2: all I'd ever wanted. All I'd ever wanted was to
Speaker 2: be loved by somebody, especially somebody who I saw as
Speaker 2: really good looking, responsible, kind, generous. I always remember him saying,
Speaker 2: I've got your back, and he would say that all
Speaker 2: the time, and that and even he would put his
Speaker 2: hand in the small of my back. So I always
Speaker 2: felt very, very supportive. And I'd traveled before, and lived
Speaker 2: overseas before, and worked overseas before, and for me, that
Speaker 2: was always a high point of life, to be able
Speaker 2: to travel and to live in a different culture and learn.
Speaker 1: In Part two of my No Filter conversation with Susan,
Speaker 1: we speak about the story of the unexpected love affair
Speaker 1: that she began a few years ago later in her life,
Speaker 1: after her first marriage ended, she was already a single mum,
Speaker 1: and we also talk about the twist that made her
Speaker 1: doubt everything about her identity all over again. It's an
Speaker 1: amazing story. Keep an eye out in your feed. We'll
Speaker 1: be dropping that episode later this week. Susan's book is
Speaker 1: called The Love That Remains and you can find it
Speaker 1: in any bookstore. And this is a bit of a tangent,
Speaker 1: but please try to support your local bookstore wherever you
Speaker 1: can if you like the experience of going into a
Speaker 1: bookstore and browsing and looking at the things on the shelf.
Speaker 1: The only way that bookstores are going to survive is
Speaker 1: if we actually don't order everything online all the time
Speaker 1: and sometimes go into books stores whenever we can and
Speaker 1: support them. Small businesses like bookstores really need us to survive.
Speaker 1: No Filter was produced by Melanie Tate and For moremma
Speaker 1: Mea podcasts, we have dozens. You can go to mamamea
Speaker 1: dot com dot au forward Slash podcasts if you're looking
Speaker 1: for something else to listen to, like and follow all
Speaker 1: of our Mamamea podcasts which are currently bringing you Hot
Speaker 1: pod Summer one hundred hours of Summer listens from spicy
Speaker 1: conversations to incredible stories, fashion beauty where the friends in
Speaker 1: your ear is over Summer