‘Three words to change The world’
Clutching each other’s hands, the women cried together in the corridors of Holyrood. One was the first minister, the other was the mother who inspired her apology for Scotland’s forced adoption scandal.
As they wiped away their tears, Nicola Sturgeon laughed as Marion Mcmillan told her: “A wee lassie from Galloway and a wee lassie from Ayrshire have just changed the world.”
Sturgeon decided to use her last official statement as first minister to formally apologise for one of Scotland’s worst human rights scandals. “We are sorry,” she told MSPS.
She also used her speech to highlight the use of the cancercausing drug Stilbestrol, also known as DES, that was given to millions of women until the early 1970s. Addressing MSPS on Wednesday, Sturgeon said the issuing of a formal apology by governments was an action reserved for “the worst injustices in our history”.
She added: “Without doubt the adoption practices that prevailed in this country for decades during the 20th Century fit that description.
“So today, as first minister, on behalf of the Scottish Government, I say directly to the mothers who had their babies taken away from them, to the sons and the daughters who were separated from their parents, to the fathers who were denied their rights, and to families who have lived with this legacy: for the decades of pain that you have suffered, I offer today a sincere, heartfelt and reserved apology.
“We are sorry. No words can ever make up for what has happened to you but I hope this apology will bring you some measure of solace.”
Moments after delivering the statement the first minister told The Sunday Post, which has campaigned for an apology for years: “Today was very special and the
apology was long overdue. It means such a lot to me to have been able to do this.
“It was my last proper statement as Scotland’s first minister and I can’t think of an issue that was more important.”
Mcmillan, 74, who was just 17 and living in Stranraer when she became pregnant and sent to a mother and baby home, said she was “overwhelmed and grateful to the first minister for making my dying wish come true.”
The cancer patient said: “I finally feel that the mothers and children who were so cruelly taken and sentenced to a lifetime of shame and bereavement have been listened to at last.
“I felt Nicola Sturgeon meant every single word when she told parliament that we were victims of the worst injustices in history, and that nothing like this could ever happen again.
“Nicola said it was a very emotional day for her as her own mother was a very young teenage mum when she gave birth to her, and that in different circumstances what happened to us could have happened to her. She was deeply sincere.
“Her tears were genuine, as I told her that the apology was also for the many mothers and adoptees who had already died without ever hearing the words she said on behalf of Scotland: we are sorry.
“With the official apology, I believe we can now grow and heal and work to provide the correct support for all affected by forced adoption.
“I hope this landmark day will see the beginning of a raft of changes that will make it easier for families driven apart to find each other, and for the correct support to be made available to help them cope with the trauma of loss and the emotions brought to the fore through reunion which, in reality, is nothing like the television shows that bring parents and children together.
“Most of all, I feel the secrets and shame imposed upon all of us can finally be brought into the light so the truth can be told once and for all.”
Like many of the 60,000 unmarried Scottish mothers between the late 1950s and early ’70s, Mcmillan, who now lives in Paisley, was just a teenager when her family banished her to a mother and baby home where she was forced to give up her baby son.
Mcmillan said the regime at the Salvation Army-run home was “brutal and cruel” and she was banned from even comforting her baby during the nine months she fought to keep him.
She said: “I was called the Scotch lassie with the halfcaste illegitimate son. I begged to keep my baby. I collapsed when my baby was taken at three months by prospective adoptive parents. They returned him a day later. They rejected him because they said he wasn’t perfect.
“He was nine months old when I was ordered out of the room to go and get the clothes I had knitted for him, days before his first Christmas.
When I returned with his knitted booties, his crib was empty and I would not see him again for 40 years.”
Mcmillan returned home to Stranraer to be met by parents who told her they did not want her bringing shame on their family. She met husband George, now 73, weeks later and they went on to have three children together.
But the heartbroken mother never gave up hope of seeing her first-born, starting an organisation to help others. She travelled the world and for years campaigned for the apology which finally came last week.
In her statement to the Scottish Parliament, Sturgeon said: “The horror of what happened to those women is almost impossible to comprehend. It is the stuff of nightmares, yet those were not isolated cases – far from it.
“Consistently, mothers were lied to about the adoption process. When they did object, they were bullied or ignored. Some women were never even allowed to hold their babies.
“Most never got the chance to say a proper goodbye and many were threatened with terrible consequences if they ever tried to make contact with their child.
“For those mothers, it was a living nightmare – a nightmare from which they have never truly been able to wake.”
After Sturgeon’s apology, a series of MSPS praised The Post for its campaign.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie hailed our “tenacious support” for victims while Conservative Scottish Shadow Social Justice Secretary Miles Briggs said our campaign was “a battle against the worst human rights injustice in our country’s modern history”.
SNP MSP Rona Mackay said we uncovered “heartbreaking injustice”. Conservative MSP Jeremy Balfour said: “The Post uncovered a dark moment in Scotland’s history.”