Mrs. Ramsden

Mrs Ramsden was an officer for the adoption society that Len and Rita Fairclough visited in June 1981. Rita had decided that at the age of forty-nine she wanted to be a mother to fill a gap in her life. Len had been reluctant, being honest with himself that he'd been a rotten father to Stanley. Eventually he relented and they went to the society.

Mrs Ramsden asked the couple to tell her something of themselves, namely why did they want to adopt at this stage of their marriage? Rita answered that they had married late themselves and told Mrs Ramsden that they were thinking of a child of five or six.They advised her of their financial circumstances and the home they could offer. The lady was not impressed though, telling the Faircloughs that she felt they hadn't thought through the implications of the age that they would be at when the child was a teenager and the energy and patience they would need at that point. When Len put forward the idea that they took on a child of ten or eleven instead, she replied that there would still be problems. She put forward the idea of fostering but Rita rejected that idea, breaking down and telling her of what the two of them could give a child. Mrs Ramsden was polite but to the point: even if they were ten years younger, they would still be too old.