Mother and daughter are reunited...after 60 years
A WOMAN who was separated from her mother at birth has finally been reunited with her – more than 60 years later.
Norah Gibson, 63, never knew her birth mother, Rita Campbell, as she was given up for adoption as a newborn in 1955.
But she spent 50 years trying to track down her mystery parent.
The two finally met after researchers from a TV production crew helped her with the search.
It turned out Rita, 85, had moved to Canada years earlier – and that Norah had a halfbrother, Ian Fair.
Grandmother-of-five Norah finally got to meet Rita and Ian when they travelled to Scotland to meet their long lost relative – with mother and daughter sharing their first hug at Glasgow Airport. Care worker Norah, from Dumbarton, West Dunbartonshire, said: “My mother was unmarried when she had me, and her parents took control. She never had a say in the matter.
“Her hands were tied, she didn’t have any part in the decision. She literally saw me being taken out of the room.
“My mum kept her secret all her life, only one of her brothers knew.”
She added: “We look alike, we think alike – it is so similar, it’s uncanny.
“I’d been looking for more than 50 years and got nowhere. I never wanted to give up looking for her.
“I looked in records in Clydebank Town Hall and in Edinburgh, but all I had was her name and address. I didn’t know she was using the name Rita. She’s just amazing, she’s a lovely wee person.
“I think she was in shock and couldn’t quite believe it.
“It was the most surreal feeling.”
Norah said she had grown up in a loving home and did not want to upset her adoptive parents by trying to trace her other family.
But when her adoptive father John Gibson died in 1992, she stepped up her search for her real mother.
They were finally reunited with the help of the researchers, eventually speaking for the first time ever on Mother’s Day. During Rita’s two-week trip to Scotland, they visited the building where Norah had been born in Dumbarton, as well as local attractions, including the Forth and Clyde Canal.