‘Dad said he was sorry for what had happened - it meant a lot to me’
Steve – the newborn baby left in a public toilet before growing up with an adopted family in the Staffordshire Moorlands – has finally met his birth family after searching for years. The 32-year-old was emotional as he was introduced to his birth father f
IT WAS one March morning three decades ago when a female passerby discovered a tiny newborn baby in the public toilets opposite Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club.
He was wrapped in a blue blanket, alone and suffering from hypothermia.
There was no sign of his birth mum but it’s believed he was delivered between 6am and 10am.
The woman immediately took him from the toilets in Wadham’s Fold and carried him to the football ground, where staff from the club shop called an ambulance.
The baby was taken to New Cross Hospital, and he received treatment for his hypothermia.
Nurses there named him Steve – after Wolves hero Steven Bull.
Steve spent a month in hospital before he was transferred into foster care.
After a local newspaper picked up the story, Steven donated a hat and scarf to the little tot.
But despite the attention, there were still no leads.
A teenage girl came forward to say she was Steve’s mum but tests showed she wasn’t telling the truth.
When he was one year old, Steve was taken in by a family in Cheadle.
He always knew he was adopted but only really began to understand the circumstances of his birth when he was a teenager, as a pupil at Painsley Catholic College.
And when he was 19 he told his adoptive family that he was going to try and find his birth mum.
“My mum and dad were always open about me being adopted,” Steve told the Post & Times in 2013.
“I had a cake to celebrate the day I was adopted. We turned it into a good thing, which it was, it was a brilliant thing.
“I had an ace childhood. They knew absolutely nothing about my birth mum but always said it would be nice if I could start building up a picture. They understood the need to know.
“The problem was that I needed a name to start looking and I literally had no information.”
It was the beginning of a long and difficult search that had proved fruitless. There were no signs, no clues left at the scene to help him.
His mum had, it seemed, simply vanished. With only scant information about what happened, Steve could only guess and make assumptions about the woman – or girl – who gave birth to him.
He got in touch with an agency called After Adoption, who put together a file including the original press clippings and a few photographs taken when he was in hospital.
“It was nice to just information,” explained get Steve. that “It was strange to see the file, and read about the campaign.
“We did a radio interview and another newspaper interview.
“Nothing came from it but the manager who used to run the shop at Wolverhampton Wanderers rang in and said he remembered the day I was found. It was nice to hear his side of events, and for him to get in touch.
“He wasn’t expecting to find a baby that day. It’s not what you go into work thinking will happen is it?
“The people who have got in touch have told me that they still think about that day. Something like that must have some kind of impact on your life.
“The woman who found me phoned me a couple of years ago. She told me she always thought about me on March 17.
“I would like to meet her, to thank her. I did send her a one-off Christmas card with a bit more detail about my life, but she didn’t get back to me. I think maybe a phone call was enough for her, and that’s fine.
“I suppose I didn’t really expect anyone to come forward because of the circumstances. I started the campaign as a way of building up a picture of my past because what my mum and dad knew is slightly different to what we know now.
“They were always told that there was a football match on and the lady who found me was on her way to get tickets, but it turns out that the match was the day after.”
But Steve’s search has come to an end after he appeared on the ITV show Long Lost Family.
He was told both his birth mother and father had been traced through DNA studies.
And there was an emotional reunion as he met his dad, Rob, who hailed from the Black Country but now lives in South Wales with his family.
Rob explained he never knew he had a son or that he had been abandoned as a baby.
Rob apologised for not being there for Steve and gave a heartfelt thankyou to his adoptive parents for raising him.
Steven – who also met his half sister – said: “He said he was sorry for what had happened and he understood it was difficult. It meant a lot to me.
“Meeting Rob and discovering siblings is a huge bonus in all of this.”
He added: “I feel really happy. Hopefully, we might be able to build some form of relationship going forward and start to build more on my identity.”
While Steve didn’t get to meet his birth mother, who was not named, he was shown a picture of her.
She also sent a letter explaining some of the reasons she decided to give him up that day during a ‘very distressing period in her life.’
However, she added how she had never stopped loving him and would always light a candle every year on his birthday.
She also looked him up on Facebook. Signing off, she added: “You look so happy with your proper family and I’m glad of that and I’m sorry for did what I did. Be happy always. I’ll always love you.”
Steven was relieved to finally have the answers he’d been looking for.
He said: “This is more than I could have hoped for.”