When Rachel McArthur was seven years old, her mother introduced her to Paddington Bear. She seemed innocent enough, but it was actually her mother’s gentle attempt to broach a very difficult topic.
“I had a Paddington container, a Paddington quilt and all the paraphernalia,” recalls Rachel, now 55. ‘Then one day she turned around and said, ‘You’re just like Paddington. They left you at a station just like him.’ And she told me I was adopted.’
Rachel, an NHS service manager in Nottingham, made headlines in June 1969 when she was found in a battered carrycot in a car park at Euston station in London. She was at least six weeks old and in poor health, with ulcerated diaper rash and a chest infection.
He was given the name Rachel, adopted by Phyllis and Donald McArthur, and enjoyed an “idyllic” childhood in Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, with his two older brothers, who were the McArthurs’ biological children, and a younger adopted brother.
“I couldn’t have wished for anything better,” says Rachel, whose story appears in this week’s episode of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace.
Rachel McArthur (pictured with Paddington), 55, who was found in a car park at London’s Euston station in June 1969, appears in this week’s episode of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace.
But in her teens, Rachel developed a resentment toward the unknown mother who had abandoned her in a parking lot. “I held a grudge against him for many years,” she admits.
‘It was anger for rejecting me. I guess most foundlings would feel that way, because you don’t know why and there’s no information, just that she clearly couldn’t take care of me. I still carry the scars of that today.’
Rachel, who is divorced and has a 14-year-old son, found her biological mother’s actions impossible to understand. “I would rather die than give up my son,” she says. “I just don’t know how I could be separated from my baby.”
He contacted the Long Lost Family after deciding it was the right time to piece together their story. “The more I grew up, the more I thought, ‘I want to know where I come from,'” she says.
The team had some surprises, good and bad. The first was that Rachel’s biological mother, Christine, had died in 2013, aged 61. “I felt sad and disappointed when I found out about that,” Rachel says.
Christine had grown up in a children’s home and was only 16 when she had Rachel. But she already had a son (the year before she gave birth to a daughter, Eileen) and the year after Rachel was born, Christine had a son, Shane, who was put up for adoption in Ireland.
Only Eileen remained with her mother and, probably when Rachel was born, she and Christine were homeless for a time. Christine later had three more daughters and also married; She tried to start over in Canada, but fought mental health battles her entire life.
“I don’t know how you accept having had three babies and giving away two of them,” Rachel says. “But I also understand it because she had a really horrible life.”
Long Lost Family tracked down Eileen in Canada and she traveled to the UK to meet Rachel on camera. And that’s how Rachel learned something that gave her a connection with her mother.
Towards the end of her life, Christine apologized to Eileen, but never said why: although she had told Eileen about Shane’s birth, she had never told anyone about Rachel’s. Could she have been talking about Rachel?
While Rachel’s biological mother, Christine (pictured), died in 2013 at age 61, she connected with her sister Eileen, who lives in Canada.
And then Christine told Eileen a story. She said that she had imagined a girl standing under a tree on a hill, and that the girl’s name was Rachel. However, Christine never knew that the daughter she had left in the parking lot would eventually be named Rachel.
That story gives Rachel chills. “It’s funny, I’ve always been insightful and quite spiritual,” Rachel says.
“When Eileen told me that story I wondered if Christine was one too, because that’s a strange thing for someone to say. There’s no way she would have known my name. What a creepy thing to hear. She gives you goosebumps.
Another surprise that Long Lost Family discovered is that Rachel and her siblings share the same father, which is extremely unusual for foundlings. “I never expected to have full siblings,” she says. “It was so exciting and it meant a lot to me.
‘It was amazing meeting Eileen. Every time I look at her I only see myself; we look a lot alike. We could be twins. I feel that connection with her and I haven’t met her in 55 years. I always wanted a sister.
He also spoke on the phone to Shane, who lives in Australia, and hopes they can all meet up next year in the UK. “I’m so glad I did it,” Rachel says.
‘Before, people would ask: “Why do you do it?” and I said: “I want to know if I have brothers.” I wanted a bigger family. And I got my wish.’
- Long Lost Family: Born Without a Trace, from Monday, 9pm, ITV1.
