5: Andrew Pierce’s Search For His Birth Parents

Cathy

Welcome to the Indie Book Club which is brought to you by Inkspot Publishing

And I’m delighted to welcome Andrew Pierce, broadcaster and journalist and now author of his first book, Finding Margaret. And this is published by ByteBat Books and I believe it’s become a Sunday Times bestseller too.

Andrew Pierce 

It has, which is a big thrill for me because it is my first book and I had no idea if anybody was interested in story about some bloke who’s looking at search for his birth mother but it just took off. I think it struck a chord with a lot of women and a lot of mums and a lot of mums who’d…

Andrew Pierce (01:08.445)

either given up children for adoption, perhaps in the 60s or the 50s, or new people who had. And also it struck a chord, I think, Catherine, with a lot of children like me who are agonising over whether to track down a birth parent or track down a birth parent and discovered it’s not like it always is on the television. It doesn’t always end.

Cathy (01:27.798)

Yes, I’m sure. There’s a lot of romance about it, I suppose, especially from Hollywood and, you know, lot of all the tear-jerking movies, but the reality can be quite different, can’t it? And I found your story incredibly poignant, very moving. And so I’m really delighted you’re here to chat about it. But can you just first describe what prompted you to write the story in the first place? Because it’s a very personal tale.

Andrew Pierce (01:57.289)

Well, I’d hardly ever talked about being adopted. Very few people knew. My inner circle knew.

was adopted when I was three, so I spent the first three years of my life in an orphanage in Cheltenham run by the Sisters of Nazareth and I think it’s fair to say I don’t think the milk of human kindness particularly caused through the good sisters veins. But the search for my birth mother was tumultuous and emotional and complicated and there were twists and turns all the way and I was actually having dinner with my good friend Andrew Marne, his wife Jackie Ashley. She was a columnist on The Guardian. I knew her from Westminster

I’ve known Andrew for years and they just said one night they knew the story that I’d found Margaret they said you know you should share that story because

I was there with Amanda Platell, she’s a fellow columnist on the Daily Mail, she’d been with me every step of this journey and I had talked about it one night and you could have heard a pin drop with Jackie and Andrew and their two daughters and they said, you should share it. I what do you mean? I said, write a book about it. I said, well I’ve never written a book and who’d be interested? And I thought about it and a couple of weeks later I looked at my computer and thought, well I suppose I could write a few words. Before I knew it I’d written 85,000.

Cathy (03:13.304)

It’s very cathartic, I’m sure, that whole process of writing your story down. Did you find it?

Andrew Pierce (03:20.85)

It was incredibly cathartic because…

I realised I was confronting emotions that I’d ignored for years and it made me cry at points and I had to stop at points and a big part of why it took me so long to find Margaret, I didn’t start searching for her properly until I was 48, was because I agonised over my mum, Betty, who adopted me when I was three with George, they already had three children of their own and they took this peculiar little boy who they found in an orphanage into their home and treated me as their

as an equal from the very beginning.

Cathy (03:55.298)

You were so lucky, weren’t you? I mean, when you think about it, they went to this orphanage and they could have chosen any one of how many children were there.

Andrew Pierce (04:04.917)

When I was there, I think there were 48 children in the home.

Cathy (04:08.366)

And yet they chose you, which is brilliant, it?

Andrew Pierce (04:10.771)

Yeah, they wanted a boy because they’d got two girls, Susan and Shirley, and then Christopher followed next. And mum had lost two children in labour.

One was a boy, one was a girl, but they wanted a boy. And I think they realised very quickly that the toddlers were likely to hang around for quite a long time because people wanted babies, because you could mould a baby right from the beginning. And I apparently was shy, retiring, hardly spoke, was a stubborn, almost curmudgeonly.

Cathy (04:41.336)

And by the way, no, it’s not surprising you were shy in retiring as we’ll come to later on, but do carry on.

Andrew Pierce (04:46.164)

Yeah.

So they were introduced to me and I was then Patrick James. I didn’t know at the time, I didn’t know for many years that my surname was Connolly. My mother, birth mother was an Irish Roman Catholic nurse and they would take me out for walks and then they would take me out and they didn’t have very much money so there weren’t any big treats but they said they would take a packed lunch which they’d have with me in a park and gradually this little boy started to speak a little more and

They, after a few weeks, took Susan Shirley and Chris, my brother, to Cheltenham on a bus, because there was no car in those days, to see this little boy, and they took a shine to him too. And I think if they hadn’t, I’d probably still been in the home some time later. So I got lucky, not just because they took a shine to me, but because they turned out to be the most wonderful parents anybody could ever ask for.

Cathy (05:42.348)

And also the children were very involved in the whole process, which is amazing, isn’t it? They were quite keen on bringing you into their family as well.

Andrew Pierce (05:52.551)

Yeah, they got my brother and sisters were very keen and they also it meant for my brother in particular somebody who could boss around a little brother and he continued to boss me around until I left school when I was 18 and they Yeah, and they also got involved in choosing my name and there was lots of names that we chose were picked my mom and dad didn’t want me to stay Patrick because very Irish and they weren’t Irish and I think they knew

Cathy (06:04.834)

As the older sister, can, I get that.

Andrew Pierce (06:20.885)

Well, they would have known about my birth mother, but they didn’t do the adoption with her. She’d given me up when I was two years and eight months. And then she handed me over to the Catholic Children’s Society, who effectively ran the orphanage. So they had no contact with her, but they would have known that she was an Irish nurse. And I think they thought part of the break for Patrick from the orphanage and that Irish heritage would be to have a non-Irish name. So they called me Andrew, of course, and of course, Andrew is the patron

and Saint of Scotland of all places.

Cathy (06:52.11)

That process of changing your name when you were so young must have been very confusing for you. And you do go into that a little bit about how obviously there wasn’t much understanding of psychology at the time and that did cause quite a few issues didn’t it unwittingly on the part of your adopted family.

Andrew Pierce (07:17.673)

Yeah, they did their best mum and dad. They did.

Cathy (07:19.726)

I totally understand, yeah. But it wasn’t always easy, was it? That’s the, it wasn’t all plain sailing.

Andrew Pierce (07:26.261)

There were issues because they didn’t have the benefit of all these highfalutin sociology and psychologist books. They thought they had to break the link between Patrick and the orphanage. So they used to say to me, Patrick’s in the cupboard because I had this new name of Andrew and I can still remember vividly being tiny.

below the kitchen sink, staring at the cupboard, which was this pantry which was floor to ceiling. We lived in a was a little semi-detached 1950s council house, that was home, but that was a palace to my mum and dad.

to me actually and so I struggled with it not least because when I was in the orphanage the nuns used to say if I’d been bad if I was bad they used to lock me in a cupboard and that was one of the punishments if you wet the bed and I was a terrible bed wetter so Patrick was often shutting the cupboard so then mum and dad probably hadn’t realized that so it did cause all sorts of

I suppose emotional problems for Patrick in coming to terms with this new boy, this new life and of course also what they were doing was, I was also trying to come to terms with without knowing it because I was so young, rejection by my birth mother because one day she just stopped coming to see me. She’d been visiting me regularly in the home you see, she was a nurse in Birmingham.

I was in Cheltenham, 45 miles I think, so she was coming on a bus and then one day she doesn’t come and see her little boy anymore and I don’t know what the nuns said but I don’t suppose they were particularly charitable. Did they say she doesn’t love you anymore, she’s gone away, she’s dead? I don’t know. Mum and Dad, there’s one area Mum and Dad never talked to me about, ever. And we never really ever talked about the orphanage actually, we just talked about the fact that…

Andrew Pierce (09:19.637)

I always knew I was adopted but we just never talked about the orphanage and I know that my parents thought, I know in hindsight, that they thought it was a very bad place and they had to get me away from it as soon as possible.

Cathy (09:33.484)

And they were right, weren’t they? They were absolutely right. And wasn’t it a stroke of luck that it wasn’t there an outbreak of, I can’t remember which, some measles, that’s it. You were visiting them and then.

Andrew Pierce (09:44.435)

Measles. It was measles. Yeah, I got lucky because mum and dad, as they became more more intent on perhaps adopting me, they took me away for the weekend. So then have this arduous trip back.

to Cheltenham on the bus, which is two hours. When they get to the orphanage, it’s in quarantine because there’s a measles outbreak. So, mum and dad didn’t want to put me in there because of all the discomfort. So they said to the nuns, can we take him back?

And they said, okay. And then from that process point onwards, they effectively, they fostered me. I then, I was, they were then my foster parents. So this is November 63, something like that. So Patrick’s two and a half now going on. No, he’s two years, nine, 10 months. And then the following summer they formally adopted me. So I never went back. And again, that’s wonderful and very lucky, but it also meant Patrick never said goodbye to his little friends.

Cathy (10:46.326)

Yes.

Andrew Pierce (10:46.985)

and you never say goodbye to some of the nurse, the nice ladies who work there, and even some of the nuns.

Cathy (10:50.794)

If there were any, yes, yeah, if indeed there were any nice ladies working there. I’m sure there must have been one or two, but yeah. So yes, no, can really imagine how upsetting that must have been for a child. And so you basically went back to Cheltenham, didn’t you, when you started working? Which is quite an interesting twist of fate, isn’t it?

Andrew Pierce (10:56.403)

Yeah. Of course they were.

Andrew Pierce (11:19.509)

Yeah, it was fascinating because I always wanted to be a reporter from about the age of 14. You to remember my family, nobody did A levels in my family and nobody really did GCSEs or O levels. So I was lucky that whatever my birth parents gave me, they gave me an aptitude for learning and they certainly gave me an aptitude to speak and write. yeah.

Cathy (11:38.254)

They’re a bright family, weren’t they? You had engineers, had all sorts of really clever people in your family.

Andrew Pierce (11:45.363)

Well, Margaret claimed that my birth father, and we don’t know if he is my birth father, not was an engineer, but in fact he wasn’t. He was a pipe player. exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to be a reporter. what happened when I was 15, Mum had pushed this article across the table at me, The Daily Mirror. We were a Daily Mirror family.

Cathy (11:53.387)

I mean your adoptive family, were quite clever bunch, weren’t they? Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (12:11.093)

traditional working-class family always voted Labour and there was an article in that paper by Marge Proups who was then a legendary agony arm saying it was right that adopted children like me should be able to track down their birth parents. I knew nothing about this law change. Mum and Dad said, Mum said we wouldn’t stand in your way. I could see she was upset about it so I simply wrote a letter to Marjorie Proups saying you’re wrong blood isn’t thicker than water I don’t need another mum the one I’ve got is the one who adopted me and my dad.

blow me down, they published it. Caused a lot of joshing at school, all the boys calling me Marge. Roll forward to 18, when I was for jobs for newspapers, and I’d 11 out of 12 newspapers on my list. Most of the newspapers never even replied. There was one left on the list, and it was the Gloucester Shereko in Cheltenham. My mum said, you’ve got to write to that newspaper. And I said, imagine mum, if I went to Cheltenham, it’d be where it all began.

And of course that was the job I got. And you know, the editor of the newspaper was a man called Tom Hoy. We always called him Mr. Hoy. He was looking through, I’d done lots of letters to newspapers to try and get published to get a newspaper job. The one he was most interested in was the letter to Marge Prupes about adoption because he told me his own children, he and his wife had adopted two children. No doubt in my view, my adoption got me my first job in newspapers. And what a place to get the job.

Cathy (13:27.146)

he’s… yes.

Andrew Pierce (13:40.319)

Cheltenham Gloucestershire and the newspaper office was literally maybe 800 yards from where the orphanage used to stand. Who’d thought it?

Cathy (13:48.896)

Incredible. Who indeed, yeah exactly. So back to Cheltenham where it all began, yeah.

So when you decided finally to, by the way, before we get to Finding Margaret, I have to say one of the things that really struck me about your book is what incredibly amazing friends you have. Because you basically had Amanda Platell and Jane Moore and various others helping you every step of the way. And they weren’t only they were not only your friends, but they actually seem to be more your family. So you’ve

obviously been really incredibly good at creating this network of people who really care about you and that’s a real testament to I felt when I was reading the book. It’s just you know so can you tell me when you decided to finally track Margaret first of all what prompted you to do it and secondly how did you rope or how did Jane and Amanda help you?

Andrew Pierce (14:51.487)

Well, get, Amanda in particular,

Platell and I are especially close and she lost a brother a couple of years before I met her. He died, he was only in his early 40s and he died of a form of asbestosis from work he’d done as a student and he was a pharmacist and he had two young children and it was devastating for Amanda. She had one other brother and devastating for her parents. And Amanda and I became incredibly close and her parents, Frank and Norma, who I absolutely loved, said, you know Mandy, when you met Andrew,

We now know God sent you Andrew after we lost Michael. He was sent to you by the good Lord and they really believe this.

Jesus sent you, God sent you, Andrew, after Michael died, and we are glad because it means he looks over you and looks after you. And the funny thing is, we are so close, we are as close as a brother and sister, but she had gently been saying to me for a long time, you should try and track down your birth mother because she cared about you, she visited you a lot, and she won’t be getting any younger. She could be getting dementia. My doctor dad, George, was diagnosed with dementia at 64. And Jane Moore,

Cathy (16:03.51)

And he had actually privately encouraged you, hadn’t he?

Andrew Pierce (16:06.577)

He had. My own dad, before he disappeared into that twilight world of dementia, he worked on the assembly line in British Leyland. Very humble man, born in the Millwall, East End. You wouldn’t know that from my accent, would you? But he would clutch my hand as he was getting closer to the twilight world of dementia and he’d say, you know son, you should track down your birth mother because I think she loved you in her own way and she needs to know you’re okay because she could be worrying about you. And then he said what he often said as I was growing

Cathy (16:19.438)

you

Cathy (16:31.694)

yeah.

Andrew Pierce (16:36.471)

But if you do, don’t tell your mother I said so.

And dad, so dad’s words were always ringing in my ear. I’d stumbled on my birth certificate by accident when I was doing a job in my 30s. It was a place where you get birth marriages and marriage certificates and birth certificates. And there I found my name was Connolly for the first time. But that’s all I knew, Patrick James Connolly and Jane Moore. Now she’s a columnist on The Sun. She’s also one of the presenters of Loose Women. So lots of your listeners will know her. She had tracked down four or five birth parents for other friends.

and she tracked on her own birth father because she had a classic girl of the 60s like I was a classic boy of the 60s.

a slightly complicated upbringing and the man she thought was her father, she discovered when she was 18, wasn’t her birth father at all. So she tracked down her birth father. she was the expert. She tracked him down with some great journalistic ingenuity. We found her, we found that she was in Birmingham. This was a shock because my second newspaper job, Catherine, was on the Birmingham Evening Mail. I’d assumed because I was born in a hospital in Bristol that Margaret lived in the Bristol area or had me in Bristol

Cathy (17:26.862)

I didn’t know. Did you mention that in the book?

Andrew Pierce (17:49.633)

She was clearly covering her tracks even then. Worked in Birmingham Hospital, had me in hospital in Bristol and put me in an orphanage in Cheltenham. So nobody could…

She didn’t want anyone to know her secret, if you like. So Amanda was with me every step of the way. We find her in this little house in Birmingham. I thought to myself, God, when I was on the Birmingham Mail, did she read my stories? Did she pass me in the street? I wouldn’t have known.

We took advice from the social services people who are experts in all of this. They said don’t write to her because somebody might open her mail. Don’t call her up because she could just hang up. Get a friendly female face to knock on the door and you stay out of the way. Perhaps be in a car around the corner. So that friendly female face had to be Amanda Platell. So we plan it. Military precision. We get the train down from London. I’m in a black cab.

Cathy (18:40.75)

Amanda, got it.

Andrew Pierce (18:48.969)

with Amanda, we pass a big church close to Margaret’s house and I said to Amanda, she’ll be a devout Roman Catholic. I’m a Roman Catholic, practicing, and that’ll be her church. Little did I know. We parked my car around the corner, Amanda goes to the house, I’m all psyched up, she knocks on the door, nobody in! But, there was a little dog barking so she wasn’t far.

So Amanda’s nervous, what do I do? She you’re just gonna have to wait. she doesn’t want, and fortunately she doesn’t look like the sort who’s casing a joint to break in or anything like that. Anyway, as she’s out of sight, out of mind, I can’t see her. I see a dot emerging on the horizon, a tiny dot, and I absolutely know that my birth mother is approaching, that I’m gonna see my birth mother for the first time since I was two and a half.

How do I explain that? I can’t. And I ring Amanda and I said, she’s coming. She said, who is it? said, Margaret. She said, how do you know? I said, trust me, I do. I hung up.

Jane Moore rang and she said, what’s happening? said, she’s walking down the street. Jane didn’t even question. How did I know? She said, can you see her yet? I said, just the outline of her. She said, it’ll be her. If you feel it’s her, it will be her. I knew when my father walked into a restaurant when she found her father for the first time, five men walked in, she knew it wasn’t him. A man walked in, even though she didn’t look like him, she knew it was her father. And as she walked past the car, she didn’t even look at the taxi, I noticed her high cheekbones, which I share.

thought was am I going to turn this woman’s life upside down? I hope not. She knocked on the door of Amanda when Margaret went inside. Margaret denied it was her. Who could blame her? She hadn’t had any thought or contact from me for 50 odd years. So we did what journalists would do.

Cathy (20:39.534)

But Amanda showed her a photo, didn’t she?

Andrew Pierce (20:42.131)

She did. It was a photograph of Patrick, as I was then, in a little red duffle coat in a park, looking at a flower bed, which my mum and dad had taken on one of my first early trips with them. And I looked sad and pensive, but nothing more. And Margaret, she puts the picture in Margaret’s hand, and Margaret’s stroking the photograph, saying to Amanda, he’s so sad, look, he’s crying, he’s crying. I’m not crying in the photograph. I think Margaret was crying and hadn’t realised. And she pushed the photograph.

Amanda said, it’s not me, it’s not me, I’m so sorry, it’s so cruel. Closed the door. Jane had prepared it for all eventualities. Amanda comes to the car, we take a car, we go and find a pub, doesn’t matter if it’s 10 o’clock in the morning, we’re old hacks, aren’t we? And I got a typed letter to Mark, which I pushed through the door saying who I was, I didn’t say I was a journalist, saying I wasn’t looking for a second mum.

was comfortably off and I wasn’t after any money. just wanted to perhaps meet her and she could answer a few questions.

Cathy (21:40.622)

So did you write that letter in the pub? You wrote that letter in the pub there.

Andrew Pierce (21:44.521)

Yeah, exactly what we did. And then we pushed it through the door. And then Jane rang again and said, what’s happened? And she said, you have to tell Amanda. She’s got to go back. It’s quite a big ask. It’s a big ask. And Amanda said, I said, have another drink.

Cathy (21:57.132)

Yes, I can imagine. I can imagine.

Andrew Pierce (22:02.865)

So she girded herself, she went back, Margaret threw open the door and she said, I’ve been praying on bended knee to Our Lady that you’d come back. It’s me. Tell him it’s me and tell him I’ll see him, but not now, not here. I have a family and I don’t want them to know anything about my secret. Nobody knows. And so.

Cathy (22:03.63)

What were you drinking? Was it…?

Cathy (22:10.658)

Andrew Pierce (22:24.447)

We eventually made an arrangement to meet and we met, not quite what I had in mind, we met in the cafeteria in British Home Stores in Birmingham City Centre. She had a cup of tea and she didn’t drink a drop of it. She was too nervous.

Cathy (22:38.158)

Also, she didn’t ask you any questions, did she? She let you chat, is that right? Or was happy to answer questions about herself, but…

Andrew Pierce (22:45.897)

Well, so what happened, Amanda hung around for a few minutes and then she disappeared. So we chatted and we made small talk and I thought I can’t get straight into this. So I asked her little bit about her life. So she told me that she’d got married and that was clearly why she decided to give me up for adoption when I was nearly three. She’d met somebody, he was called Patrick ironically, and he knew nothing about me because almost certainly he wouldn’t have married me. He wouldn’t have taken on somebody else’s child.

and she told me about her children. And as we were talking, I thought, she hasn’t asked me anything. And I realized at end of the hour, she hadn’t asked me one question about my life since I left her. And I thought, I was trying to rationalize it in my head. Is it because it’s too distressing, she can’t bear to think about how happy I’ve been? Or…

She can’t bear to think all these answers because she should have been there. I’m attributing all these emotions to her. Or didn’t she care? So Amanda comes back just before the hour’s up and she says, Margaret, did he tell you he’s a really successful journalist? Is he now? She said. she looked bewildered. And I just smiled at her. She asked me nothing. No. Do you recognise me from TV?

Cathy (23:59.406)

So she didn’t recognize you. She hadn’t recognized you from the journalism or broadcasting.

Andrew Pierce (24:06.229)

or newspapers and it was odd because a few people stopped while we were in the British Home Stores to sort of smile and wave. I don’t think she noticed. so when I said goodbye to her she said thank you for making my day my week. Thank you for making my life. She gave me a big smackeroo on the lips and I said can we meet again Margaret because there are a few things I’d like to ask you. And she said yes you’re entitled to answer the you’re entitled to answers. And of course I

see you again I’d enjoy it very much and I won’t spoil too much about the book but there were numerous attempts then to meet up with her and she didn’t show up.

Cathy (24:47.936)

it was very difficult to read about, let alone experience.

Andrew Pierce (24:53.331)

Yeah, again, there was always a different reason and I always, I still do give Margaret the benefit of the doubt. Was it because she couldn’t face talking to me because it was re-opening the most terrible pain? Had she really buried all evidence of what happened like nuclear waste? If you read psychology, I mean I had to have therapy over all of this, believe it or not. Hard-nosed hat like me.

Cathy (25:16.974)

I do believe it thoroughly. actually think, certainly when I was reading the book, I thought that the main, she was just terrified of someone finding out. I think if she’d been a single person with no family, I’m sure that she would have embraced you and I’m sure she wanted to and probably felt very conflicted. She just didn’t want to explain to her family that effectively she’d been living a lie for many years, you know?

Andrew Pierce (25:33.396)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (25:41.653)

That’s absolutely right. She was a staunch Roman Catholic. When she retired as a nurse, she went to church not once a day, sometimes she went twice a day.

She was a quiet bird-like looking woman, steely, clearly. mean, imagine walking up the aisle when she got married and they say, does anyone know of any lawful impediment? what about your little boy 45 miles away in an orphanage? Steel. I mean, imagine somebody shouting out, haven’t you got a little boy? I it would have been the end of the marriage. It would have been such a humiliation for her. But I’m glad she did what she did because she had a chance at happiness and she was right to take it, in my view.

Cathy (26:20.214)

Yes, and you’re very generous with that. think you’re right. It must have been a lonely existence for her and very, she must have felt terrible most of the time. And so if she had, as you say, a shot at happiness and she took it, you know, but you know, is that probably why her visit stopped is after she got married, right? When you were in the…

Andrew Pierce (26:22.219)

She

Andrew Pierce (26:36.007)

Yeah. And she…

Andrew Pierce (26:43.925)

The nuns were pretty brusque about it. When she decided to give me up for adoption, see what you do when you track down your birth parent, you get a file which social services got from the Sisters of Nazareth because the order is still running and they run a lot of old people’s homes now. All the orphanages long closed down because I’m afraid some of them had some terrible secrets. was some terrible abuse went on in some of the homes, including mine I’m afraid. But the nuns made it absolutely clear in the letter to Margaret.

you will not visit anymore. You must not visit if there are potential adopters in the area. You’re not to see him. That’s it. So she never said goodbye to her own son. Brutal for her. Because it wasn’t a little, you know, she had a toddler who was walking, talking and probably had attitude. Didn’t talk much apparently. Yeah. Apparently I hardly talked at all, but I’ve made up for it haven’t I?

Cathy (27:16.43)

Okay, so it wasn’t even her choice.

Cathy (27:24.238)

That’s so heartbreaking. Yeah, definitely.

Cathy (27:34.144)

Yeah, well, I can’t imagine that at all. Absolutely, yes. So tell me about Jimmy Coffey.

Andrew Pierce (27:49.749)

Well, this is fascinating. Again, in case people don’t know about it, I won’t give too much away, but she told them in the file, which she fills in the form when I’m living in a mother and baby’s home with her. Now, people may have heard of these mothers and baby’s homes. There’s been some infamous stories about them in Ireland with babies found buried in the ground. And I don’t know what… Yeah.

Cathy (28:09.59)

The Mordling Sisters went into that, movie, I think it’s very well seeped into public consciousness now, how, know…

Andrew Pierce (28:17.365)

Yeah, well I don’t know what went on in this mother’s and baby’s home in Bristol but the files are closed for another 40 years.

Cathy (28:27.042)

Wow. Okay.

Andrew Pierce (28:28.339)

Yeah, and I tried to obtain the files and they said they can’t be released because they could cause distress to people living today. I don’t think Patrick, because Patrick was just a baby then. But so she in that, in the mother and baby’s home, this woman who’s all on her own, fills in the form and she says, there’s a prospect of marriage. And she says there’s a father and he’s James Coffey, who she says is an engineer. Well, he’s not an engineer actually, as I discovered he’s a pipe layer

but there’s a tragedy and he never gets to see Patrick and it’s not clear whether he’s the father because he was killed by a car, a runaway car, an accident. He was taken to the hospital where she worked.

And there is a theory that he could be what they call a toe tag father. So if she was trying to protect the true identity of the father, just say he was a married man, just say he was a married doctor, because it will throw into here, your listeners may think, how old was you when she had me, 16, 17, 18?

She was 34 when she had me and she was just a few weeks from her 35th birthday. she was a mature woman, a district nurse. knew exactly what she knew, exactly about the birds and the bees. So was she protecting someone? And what they call, I’d never heard of this toe tag father, but an Irish Catholic priest told me about it. The body is in a mortuary or it’s on a bed in a hospital. She’s working in that hospital. The body would have an identity, literally a tag attached to the toe. You see the

name, that’ll do. Jimmy Coffey.

Cathy (30:09.59)

Incredible and obviously that set you on a wild goose chase didn’t it or looking for the man on your birth certificate who turned out well again let’s not give too much away but a really incredible story and how helpful his family were to you as well that was very you know there’s some really kind people out there aren’t they so

Andrew Pierce (30:31.613)

Yeah, I I got lucky. tracked down the Coffey family and I even went to the place where the accident happened and the accident did happen for sure. I even found, yeah, I mean, he suffered horrendous injuries and he probably was dead for a time. hit the ground. I even managed to track down the man who was standing next to him, who worked with him in the Builders gang and his family.

Cathy (30:40.47)

It’s a horrific sounding accident.

Andrew Pierce (30:59.349)

said they knew nothing about him having fathered a child. They knew nothing about a serious girlfriend. They said because what Jimmy Coffey was most interested in was gambling horses and the pub wasn’t a ladies man. I suppose you could say that about me too in a cheeky way. So was he my father? And I have to say, I don’t think I look like him. And there’s a photograph in the book of him and…

I’ve had so many letters from people saying he’s not your dad. I’ve had so many letters from people saying he’s definitely your dad. So Yeah, so do I do a DNA test with the Coffey family answer? I probably will

Cathy (31:35.15)

That’s really funny.

Cathy (31:42.956)

Okay. By the way, do you look anything like your birth, like your adoptive family? Or were you completely, were you like a…

Andrew Pierce (31:50.474)

No.

It used to make me laugh when people would be out as a family and say, you can see my family who adopted me, mum was always, should we say, she was on a diet all her life. My big sister who’s still with us, she’s been on a Zempik and she’s lost four and a half stone. We lost my sister during COVID and she was morbidly obese and my brother’s morbidly obese. And I’ve always been…

Cathy (32:04.968)

Okay, yeah.

Cathy (32:19.758)

Slender.

Andrew Pierce (32:20.431)

slightly built and I have the same build as my birth mother and also I had very dark hair and my family were blonde and they have a pronounced Swindon accent which is I was brought up. My dad had a Millwall accent and I have no accent at all. Now whether that was because the nuns, maybe I learned to speak with the nuns which clearly I did but

When I was at school I was always in the poetry competitions and the drama shows and that was never my siblings. We just went to a comprehensive.

Cathy (32:54.542)

quite amazing because accent is usually formed, obviously when you tend to have the accent, when you’re 18 I think, the plasticity of your brain changes and that’s the accent you usually will have for the rest of your life. But if you were three when you were adopted, it’s amazing you didn’t sound like them or…

Andrew Pierce (33:04.628)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (33:15.475)

Yeah, and I was always, I was an altar boy and always I was doing readings and the drama teacher or the teacher would say, Andrew Pierce has such a clear, lovely, clear voice. And my drama teacher at school wanted me to be an actor and I said, whoa, good luck with that Mr. Lapping, my parents are never gonna wear that, no chance. And we even found some TV footage from when I was 16 on something called Swindon Community.

TV where I played Jesus in Stations of the Cross. I very pleased I was Jesus, you know, and I sound the same. I was. I was. And I don’t think Jesus was very tall. yeah, so, so, no, I don’t look like my family and I don’t sound like them.

Cathy (33:53.078)

Is that because you were one of the smallest children in the class? must have been because you… Yeah, so you could fit into the crib probably. No, don’t. Well, yeah.

Andrew Pierce (34:05.093)

And in fact, I can remember when my father’s funeral, some old friends came to the funeral because my dad had Alzheimer’s and dementia and it had been a long drawn out thing. And said as the family walked in and we all sat down, they thought it was pretty obvious which is the adopted one.

Cathy (34:21.848)

So funny. And also it’s quite funny if you came from a, you know, left wing working class family, because obviously you’re known as a GB news commentator and you know, and I wondered that must be, you must have some debates within your own family on politics and things like that.

Andrew Pierce (34:39.957)

Oh God, I I can remember in the run-up to the 1979 general election, I’m doing my A-levels at Swindon at St. Joe’s, the comprehensive, the Catholic comp, comprehensive, and there was a poster, vote conservative poster, in a woman across the road’s window, and I can hear my parents saying, who does she think she is? What’s she got? Voting conservative. And I remember saying to my father, who worked at British Leyland, Dad,

Cathy (35:00.494)

do you mean about Margaret Thatcher?

Andrew Pierce (35:07.487)

You should think about voting for the Conservatives. What are you talking about son? We’re working class, we work in factories. Your grandfather ran an electricity meter, your grandmother worked in a lion’s tea shop, your mum worked in a warehouse. Dad, you’re not listening to me. This Thatcher woman says there’ll be secret ballots before strike action. Strikes have bedeviled this family all our lives because he worked for British Leyland in the basket case days of the 70s and it used to be show of hands and dad would be out again. Holidays were cancelled.

All sorts of Christmas would be very cut back and this effect so I said she’s promising this They were horrified and my brother looked over my shoulder in the polling station in July. What was it? May 79? Shouted at me in the polling station shouted all the way home

Cathy (35:53.036)

You sneaked a peek at your secret ballot.

Andrew Pierce (35:56.073)

Yeah, supposedly a secret ballot. So I’m saying, he’s broken the law. He’s looking over my shoulder. And he announces to the entire polling station, this is my little brother. He’s just voted conservative. He should be ashamed of himself. And you know what? My brother still has dogmatically laid bare as he was then.

Cathy (36:08.59)

So you obviously.

Cathy (36:13.512)

You know what’s amazing is how obviously politics is very tribal, and people are not emotional. They’re very emotional when they vote and they don’t think rationally, I think, a lot of the time. But you might be proof that actually your political standing is genetic rather than from your tribe, so to speak.

Andrew Pierce (36:18.675)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (36:35.625)

I do wonder about it because I’ve had some contact with Margaret’s…

children, two of them, she’s got four, and they both knew me from TV. And when I told Margaret’s daughter who I was, that a book was coming out, and I would never have written the book if my mum, who adopted me, was still alive, or if Margaret was alive, Margaret had very bad dementia in the end.

And she said halfway through the conversation, you’re not that bloke I see on Good Morning Britain three or four times a week. And there was a terrible pause and I said, I rather fear I am. I said, I’m probably the one you violently disagree with as opposed to the bloke from the mirror who you passionately agree with. was only to discover later, she’d often said, I really like that bloke on the Daily Mail. I always agree with him, not knowing I was her half brother. Amazing!

Cathy (37:19.928)

Yeah.

Cathy (37:29.294)

That’s so funny.

Cathy (37:33.802)

Amazing. Amazing. So there are lots of questions that are unanswered from, know, which is obviously natural because when you write a memoir, obviously a memoir is not like a novel which neatly ties everything up, but do you think you’ll write a follow-up?

Andrew Pierce (37:54.421)

I think there will be a follow up actually because there are so many unanswered questions and I’m getting so many letters from people and so many people are screaming me do DNA and I think if I do the DNA test and if it’s not Jimmy Coffey well then the search continues if it is Jimmy Coffey then there’s a lot more to tell about him and it would be ironic if it is Jimmy Coffey because

When I realized I was as Irish as a shamrock, I mean, she called me Patrick, and Jimmy Coffey’s very Irish, and I’ve been to Ireland…

Cathy (38:25.784)

Have you ever felt Irish in your life? Have you ever had any sort of particular affinity with Ireland?

Andrew Pierce (38:31.253)

I always felt Irish when I was at school because I was the only person in my junior school, in the entire class who wasn’t Irish because it was Catholic school, Catholic junior school. And on St. Patrick’s Day, they’d say, put your hands up if you’re Irish. Every hand went up bar mine. Put your hands up if you’re English.

Cathy (38:45.452)

That’s so funny. You probably were the only one who wasn’t a plastic paddy.

Andrew Pierce (38:49.011)

the only one and every child had shamrock on their jacket. So I sort of felt like an honorary Irishman anyway. so if Coffey is my father, then so much of me being related to some eminent Irishman of letters like Seamus Heaney or James Joyce. I’m the son of a humble pipe player who I would have called in my youth a Navvy. But that’s all right. I’ve never been a snob.

Cathy (39:14.978)

But on the other hand, he also had an amazing family, which, you know, and therefore that says a lot about him. He obviously comes from a very warm, loving family, so it wouldn’t be all bad.

Andrew Pierce (39:19.113)

You did.

Andrew Pierce (39:25.587)

Yeah, they were very warm, very loving and hardworking. But they came from a dirt poor part of Galway. And Margaret came from a dirt poor part of County Mayo. mean, she did romanticize a bit her upbringing. She said it was a farm. It wasn’t, because I found it. And it was a…

two-roomed house which six of them lived in. No hot or cold running water. That was the Atlantic. That’s where they got the water from. And no electricity or gas. They didn’t go on the mains I think until the 1970s. and her first language was Gaelic and so was Jimmy Coffey’s. So I’d say I couldn’t be more Irish if I tried. Particularly if Coffey is my father. And remember she called me Patrick James.

Cathy (40:04.578)

Wow.

Yeah. Incredible. Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (40:19.625)

was the James after James Coffey. So who was Patrick? Because her father was Sean. And of course Jimmy Coffey has a brother called Patrick and I look more like him. Now that’s another hair, we don’t want to start that one running.

Cathy (40:21.698)

Yes.

Cathy (40:39.496)

And have you actually got in touch with, I know you described Margaret’s funeral where you actually were under the same roof as your half siblings effectively. Have you had any contact with them?

Andrew Pierce (40:50.346)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (40:54.609)

I’ve actually met her eldest, called Peter, who’s 60. And he looks like his mother, but I don’t think he looks like me, even though I look like his mother, who’s my birth mother. Hmm? Yeah, I’m not a very good judge. so I got a message on social media from his daughter, and she said, my dad’s…

Cathy (41:07.554)

You might not be the best judge. You might not be the best judge of who you look like.

Andrew Pierce (41:21.493)

really wants to meet you and his sister Anne who I first contacted she was going to meet me but she just didn’t cope with it all she was devastated that her mother had kept this secret to herself and I remember saying to her on the phone

don’t judge her on this, Anne. It was her choice to keep the secret. And she said, but why would she not share it with me? And I remember saying to her, and then she really got emotional. I said, don’t love her any less. She’s the same woman who loved you and brought you up. so I met Peter and then I met him with his daughter. And we got on very well, Peter and I. And then I met him a second time with his daughter. She’s in her early thirties and she got, within 10 to 15 minutes, she was crying quite a lot.

said do you want me to go she said she looked at her dad and said I can’t believe you didn’t tell me tell me you should tell you what you said how like nanny Andrew is I so it just shows again she was with me I never only lived with her under one roof for five weeks in the mother and baby’s home but you still nurture nature she said

your actions, the way you hold your head, the way you smile. said, you’ve got Nanny’s fantastic smile. And she said, and she said, and I just can’t keep my eyes off you. She said, I don’t know why Dad didn’t see it. And he said, I suppose I’m seeing it now. But I think to be fair to her father, he was so nervous meeting me. And…

and he knew me off the wretched telly, which is a pain really. And they did. They did. The daughter actually had never set eyes on me, had never heard me. And that made things a lot easier with her. But she read the book from cover to cover. And she was pretty disappointed in her nanny. And I squeezed her hands and don’t be. She had her reasons for everything she did. And I have no anger.

Cathy (42:59.47)

So they had a pre, I suppose they had a pre idea of you, didn’t they? Yeah.

Cathy (43:18.382)

You know, I wonder as well, I bet you that Margaret probably wished that they knew, but just couldn’t bear to tell them. That’s what I would suspect. She probably really wanted to tell them. And actually the longer time went on, the more difficult it was to tell. Do you know what I mean? It’s one of those horrible catch-22 situation. She probably sat there often looking at her family and thinking, I wish you knew what I know. And so…

Andrew Pierce (43:37.022)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (43:46.257)

Yeah, and you know, what about on my birthday? Because she could surely never have forgotten February 1961 and the coldness of the birth all on her own and in those days they had to…

have the baby was delivered in a ward they were on a separate ward because they were shameful fallen hussy women and also terrible brutal so I often think and what must Christmas have been like because she’s wrapping up a present for one child and then two children she’s often must have been thinking I should be wrapping them up for three children must have been difficult but but she did but the

Cathy (44:05.486)

It’s so ghastly and medieval, isn’t it? It’s horrific.

Andrew Pierce (44:23.797)

The person I had therapy with said, these women are capable of bearing their memories so deep, they genuinely, it’s gone. I said, but when you reappear, he said, if she started to talk about it, it could lift the lid on it, and they don’t want to lift the lid on it because it would bring all the pain flooding back, and I get that. Who’d want to relive that?

Cathy (44:46.914)

Yes, me too. Me too. And also it’s just such a horrific position to be No one would want to have to make that choice. So, you know.

Andrew Pierce (44:54.484)

No.

I didn’t want her to be hurt. I didn’t want her be upset. The point about this in the beginning as well, Catherine, was to show her that I was fine and that if she has worried about me, she had no need to worry. She could see that I was successful, okay, articulate, polite and charming. She thought Amanda was going to be my wife and I let her think that because I pretty rapidly concluded that an 82-year-old died in the Wall Irish Roman Catholic probably wouldn’t go a bundle on having a gay first son.

so I thought I’d skip that one. She wasn’t terribly keen on Protestant, so just as well I was still a Catholic. And when she said, that your girlfriend, are you going to marry her? And I said, we’ll get married at some point, Margaret. And Amanda didn’t make, she never, she played the game as well. And Amanda also was a keeper of great secrets, so she was very close to Betty, my real mum, my adoptive mum.

Cathy (45:46.679)

Yes.

Andrew Pierce (45:55.519)

morning of my civil partnership she asked Amanda had I ever tracked down my birth mother. didn’t hesitate. She lied and that was the right decision. That was the right decision. Mum would always have said it was fine that you did that but it would have hurt her. Yeah, yeah she’d have thought that even though she and dad had been great she’d have thought I wasn’t great enough because

Cathy (46:12.194)

I think that’s classified as a white lie. That is definitely a white lie because

Andrew Pierce (46:24.115)

otherwise why did he need to go and find this woman? it’s not about, it’s just needing to know somehow who you are. I was clearly different to the rest of them. Spoke differently, different outlook in some ways, although similar outlook. And I also just wanted to know what she looked like.

Cathy (46:44.492)

I completely understand. mean, I am not adopted. come from a… You can tell as soon as you look at my mother, whose kid I am. But if I had been in your position, I would have definitely wanted to know. All sorts of… Yes, my cousin who… My cousin was adopted when he was a baby. My aunt and uncle were living in Hong Kong. And they adopted him when he was one. And he was the son of a Chinese medical

Andrew Pierce (46:50.676)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (46:55.957)

But don’t you have adoption in your family?

Cathy (47:14.456)

student who was only 17 and she definitely did not want to be involved in his life at all which has been really difficult for him but you know who knows what the circumstances of her pregnancy were you know she had no future with a young child and but there was a period when Matthew was about one where up until about the age of one where the mother had the right to change her mind

Andrew Pierce (47:23.401)

Really.

Cathy (47:42.602)

And that was a very tense period for my aunt and uncle who basically were, you know, until the adoption was final, he lived with them probably from tiny baby until one and the mother had the right during that time to change her mind. And fortunately for them, she didn’t.

Andrew Pierce (47:48.692)

Yeah.

Cathy (48:03.338)

So they had the cultural thing, well I suppose the Irish and the Catholic is definitely part of that, you know he’s Chinese by ethnicity and so they obviously wanted to make sure that he was still connected to his Chinese roots. So he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Cantonese and you know he actually went to the Dragon School. So it was for them very much wanting, they didn’t want him to be a Chinese man who had no clue about his culture.

Andrew Pierce (48:08.831)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (48:33.328)

yeah.

Cathy (48:33.612)

So that just added another dimension to it. that turned out to be a… I mean, they’ve had their ups and downs, don’t get me wrong. was a very, let’s say, he was a tear away teenager. And that caused a lot of… But I mean, your own kid can be a tear away teenager, can’t they?

Andrew Pierce (48:39.573)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (48:49.525)

Right.

Andrew Pierce (48:56.371)

Yeah, well, you know, I don’t think I was a tear away teenager. I think probably Mum would say, because we lost Dad 20, 25 years ago, but I think Mum would say he was all right really. I wasn’t too much trouble.

Cathy (49:09.806)

It sounds like you were very hard working and quite, you know, very good at school.

Andrew Pierce (49:13.589)

Oh I was, I always had little Saturday jobs and flogging tickets for the local football club. was always in the thick of something. And there is a theory that adopted kids have to push themselves forward and will push themselves forward because subliminally, subconsciously they want to be noticed. Don’t overlook me because kids who are in homes weren’t noticed and could be forgotten about. That’s a theory, I don’t know if it’s true. Deprivation syndrome they call it.

and

Cathy (49:43.63)

But also you must want all the time for your real family, even subliminally, to notice you. And how better to do that than by becoming a famous journalist and broadcaster?

Andrew Pierce (49:55.413)

I know, I know, I know. And you see, when Anne eventually told Peter about me, her brother, and she’s very up, she’s distressed because it’s all become too much, and she’s going about mum and the baby, mum and the baby. He says, what baby? He says, Andrew Pierce. says, Andrew Pierce. He said, what, the bloke off the telly? What’s he got to do? He hasn’t got a baby, he’s gay. said, no, he was mum’s baby. You could see a book coming, can’t you? Another book.

Cathy (50:21.45)

Certainly can, yes absolutely. yeah it would be fabulous to have, I suppose you’ve got Jane Moore on the case, have you?

Andrew Pierce (50:30.791)

Yeah, know, Jane Moore, none of this would have happened without Jane Moore. And I only had dinner with her other night. And she always starts the conversation with, update please, on your family. She wanted to know. Very supportive, as with Amanda. And Amanda wondered if they would take an emotional toll. But actually, it’s…

Cathy (50:45.624)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (50:56.423)

anyone who’s thinking about this listening to this who thinks should I track them down? You should. And if you feel it’s, and perhaps don’t tell your mum or your dad that you’re doing it because you are entitled to know and it does fill in a few gaps and it doesn’t always work out like it does on that television program with Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell but I don’t regret any of it. It’s the right thing to do and…

the book I think has helped a lot of people actually, Cathy because I’ve had so many letters from people, so many, hundreds, and emails from people sharing their own experiences and saying that they’re going to do the same, they’re going to track them down and how do I do it and should I do it and also from mums who gave up a child saying it brought a lot of it back and sometimes it brought back a lot of sadness but

most of them were encouraged by what they read. I think it’s made a lot of people cry, but that wasn’t the intention. Well, it made me cry, but that was just writing it.

Cathy (52:05.336)

Well it certainly is very moving and an incredibly emotional read so it’ll be great to have a follow-up to the tale. which I don’t know whether you’re actively working on or is that something we’ll just have to watch the space.

Andrew Pierce (52:20.981)

No, I’m already working on, I am already working on, I think it’s fair to say I’ve already written two or three chapters of the next book. That might be called Finding My Family, or Finding My Other Family, something like that. And the DNA test will be critical to that, and that’s all got to be planned, and there’s been a little bit of TV interest in it too. But the most important thing is, I know,

Cathy (52:31.65)

I was just going to say it’s got to be finding something. Yeah. Yes.

Andrew Pierce (52:50.837)

100 % know who my birth mother is now, can we fit the final part of the jigsaw and establish who my birth father is? And if it is Jimmy Coffey, well, he was a scally, and there’s a bit of a scally about me, and he was a ladies man, which I’m not. He was a gambler, which I’m not, although I did get second place in the Grand National this year with my three pounds each way bet.

Cathy (53:14.67)

Was that an accidental choice? Did you just throw a dart at the names? Okay, yeah, yeah, that’s how I use horses, yeah.

Andrew Pierce (53:20.177)

I just like the name. I just like the name. No, I’m hopeless. Yeah. But I do know about one thing about Jimmy Coffey. He apparently had a great Irish charm and he had the gift of the gab whatever one of the great gifts, think, well, I didn’t have it in the orphanage, but developed it. People would say, Irish people always say to me, for God’s sake, you’re Irish. You’ve always been Irish. And I think Margaret was not a great talker.

But I suspect Jimmy was. So if he’s my father… I got it from someone because mum was pretty shy and my dad was really shy. And my sisters, Shirley’s not with us now sadly, and my sister and brother, very shy. They would never be on stage in a poetry competition or in a school play. You couldn’t keep me off the flipping stage.

Cathy (53:52.494)

Well, you must have got it from someone, right? You must have got it from someone.

Cathy (54:17.144)

Well, this is probably a really good time to wrap up, but it’s probably a good time to wrap up. was just, thank you so much for joining. And I really, really hope that, well, I’m sure that your next book will be just as riveting. Because I really, as well as the story, I have to comment on the writing style as well. It’s very readable. if I was having a chat to you in the pub, which is, as if we’re having a chat now, which is exactly the kind of, you so.

Andrew Pierce (54:20.735)

Say it again.

Yeah.

It’s been a pleasure.

Andrew Pierce (54:42.173)

Yeah. Yeah. I just write it as it is. It’s always been my style of writing. People always say, I can tell Andrew Pierce wrote that because they can hear my voice coming through. And so I’m glad you enjoyed the book and I hope people enjoy this podcast.

Cathy (54:59.694)

Well I’m going to get a copy for my mum who’s a big fan and also my auntie who obviously has first hand experience of adoption so and I will get you somehow to sign those books. How’s that? So yes.

Andrew Pierce (55:11.519)

We’ll sort that out. That would be easy to do. I’ll come and find you, we’ll have a cup of tea and I’ll sign them for you. Alright Cathy, lovely to meet you. Okay.

Cathy (55:16.814)

sounds great. Thank you so much, Andrew. Okay. Yes, you too. Right, we’re stop the recording there. I can, I’ll edit this out. Just say to say thank you so much. It was really great to it was it was very good. Yeah, I really am happy. By the way, you’re my first live interview. So it was very, you most of the podcasts we’ve done have just been me talking about literature. So and

Andrew Pierce (55:32.617)

Was that all right? You happy?

Andrew Pierce (55:46.847)

Brilliant, well that’s great. I know you don’t like the word but I’m more than happy to have been your guinea pig.

Cathy (55:54.286)

I don’t mind the word at all. like words that describe exactly what things are. And so, you know, I like precision and I like critical thinking. So there you go.

Andrew Pierce (55:58.837)

Exactly

Andrew Pierce (56:06.441)

Very good, very good. Well, I look forward to listening to it and it’s been lovely to talk to you and make sure we sort out the books.

Cathy (56:10.732)

Yeah, we’re going to try and we’re going to post this before the end of April because you’re supposedly our April book pick. So and we would definitely like to have you back when you do your your

Andrew Pierce (56:18.506)

Great.

Andrew Pierce (56:23.817)

without a doubt.

Cathy (56:24.974)

And also what I’ll do is when we post the podcast, I will ask people to submit what they wished I’d asked you. So you know when you watch a program or a podcast, you’re thinking, why aren’t you asking this very obvious question? And I think I covered everything I wanted to know, but there may well be others that maybe we can do a little follow-up or something.

Andrew Pierce (56:37.343)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Pierce (56:47.945)

Well, we’d delighted and if there are questions I’ll happily answer them. I remember once, one of my first radio interviews, I was interviewing some black guy who’d done really well in the military and people were screaming at the radio, did he go to private school? And I didn’t ask it and it was the obvious question.

Cathy (57:02.606)

And that’s a really good question because actually a lot of the time privilege has nothing to do with color, does it? It comes from money and class. So… interesting.

Andrew Pierce (57:12.117)

Exactly. And of course, he had gone to a private school. But why weren’t the producers saying that in my ears? Bet they didn’t. Yeah. Well, as you know from me, did say I went to a Comrade, so definitely no private education in my house. So there was no money for that.

Cathy (57:19.574)

Yeah, that’s a very good question. Yeah.

Cathy (57:28.814)

We’re amazing what love can achieve instead. yeah. Yes, you too. Anyway, I’m gonna call, as soon as this is done, I’m gonna email it to you and to Vicky, okay? I’ll email you the link and can have a look. And also what we do is we take YouTube shorts from it as well and we release a whole load of shorts. You know, those little clips on YouTube, which, and do you have a website of your own?

Andrew Pierce (57:31.573)

Exactly. Well look, really lovely to talk to you.

Andrew Pierce (57:41.169)

Lovely. Alright.

Andrew Pierce (57:49.544)

Yeah.

Andrew Pierce (57:53.255)

I do, and Vicki will tell you what it’s called because I can’t remember.

Cathy (57:56.598)

Okay, because if you want to post a link to it or something on your website then we’ll give you…

Andrew Pierce (57:59.093)

No, we will. No, will. And I’ll put it on my Instagram, I’ll put it on my Twitter, because I’ve got 330,000 followers on Twitter, so that would be a great place to put it.

Cathy (58:10.37)

We’ve only got 5,000, but maybe as a result of this we’ll get a few more. Brilliant. Andrew, you’ve been amazing. Thank you so much. Okay. Cheers.

Andrew Pierce (58:13.759)

There we are. There we are. All right. Lovely to talk to you. Take care. Lots of love. Bye. Bye.