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Below is a taste of the type of blogs I write (I usually endeavour to entertain, share life events or amuse). If you’d like to see more blogs you’ll find them on my Medium Blog page

medium.com/@HILARYCOOMBES

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Through the Eyes of an Adoptee

Extract from my Story Published in ‘We Made a Wish‘ magazine

This article was deeply personal to write – it’s an honest look at what adoption feels like from the inside, and what it means to navigate identity, love, and belonging.

I’m honoured to have shared my adoption story in We Made a Wish a magazine, a magazine that explores adoption and parenting from every perspective.

You can read it below or there’s a link to the article itself at the end …

Through the Eyes of an Adoptee

My name is Hilary Coombes. This is my adoptee story –

Adoption is a word filled with both love and loss. For those of us who are adopted, our stories begin before we can remember – yet they shape every part of who we become. I’ve lived my life as an adoptee, and I’ve come to understand both the beauty and the ache of it.

I was born in Devon many years ago and just nine days after my birth was handed over a pub counter to a couple who would eventually become my adoptive parents. Adoption procedure was very different back then. The checks and balances that exist today simply didn’t happen. It was all arranged quietly, behind closed doors, and lives changed in a matter of moments. However, I’ve been told by very many would-be parents trying to adopt a child nowadays, that there are too many hoops to be jumped through before adoption goes ahead. A sensible balance would seem idea.

I have no idea how old I was when I was told I was adopted – I simply always knew. There was never a “big reveal,” no dramatic family conversation. It was just a fact of my life. As an adult, I’m deeply grateful for that. I can only imagine the shock of learning such a truth later in life.

I grew up as an only child in a poor household with adoptive parents who loved me very much. I couldn’t have asked for more in that sense. I still believe that love is the foundation – the only real thing a child truly needs. If love is in place, the other essentials tend to follow.

On the surface, our family life seemed perfectly normal. But underneath in the quiet spaces of a child’s heart there were feelings that I didn’t understand, feelings that my parents knew nothing about.

Many adopted children learn early to hide their emotions. They sense that their story is different, that something about them is “other.” For me, that unspoken difference sometimes grew into anger. I use that word deliberately because, through the eyes of a child, the feeling of being ‘given away’ can look and feel a lot like rejection, and feeling angry about it can naturally follow. It wasn’t something I could express; I didn’t have the words. But it lived there, quietly shaping how I saw myself, and how I behaved.

Those questions never really left me. They lived quietly in the background through my teens and adult life, little whispers of who am I. I learned to live with them, but they never disappeared.

As I grew older, anger softened into curiosity. Who is my birth mother? Does she think of me? Do I look like her? I never doubted my adoptive parents’ love, but love doesn’t erase questions of identity. It took me years to understand that being adopted isn’t just about where you end up, it’s also about the mystery of where you began.

Looking back, I wish my parents had known how important it was to talk openly about adoption – to allow space for the messy feelings as well as the gratitude. Adopted children sometimes need permission to feel angry, sad, or lost. Those emotions don’t mean they’re ungrateful; they mean they’re human.

I always felt that I would upset or hurt my adoptive parents by asking questions. That feeling became ingrained to such an extent that when I was about twelve and my adoptive mother suddenly ‘out of the blue, asked me if I’d like to know about my birth mother, I immediately said no. However, the truth was I longed to know, but her question came as such a shock I feared showing interest would somehow hurt her. In my mind, asking was the same as throwing all her love and support back in her face. Looking back, I think if there had been a gentler, more gradual approach over a period of time then I might have answered differently.

If you’re an adoptive parent, the best gift you can give your child is space – space to wonder, to ask, to feel. Tell them often that their story is safe with you, that their curiosity won’t hurt you. Because what every adoptee truly wants beside love is understanding.

I was in my early fifties when my adoptive parents passed away. I finally felt ready to search for my birth family, knowing that doing so would no longer cause them pain. It took me ten years to find my biological family. It wasn’t easy back then: the internet was still in its infancy, and most searches involved long weekends at the London Records Office, or consulting church registers and town hall documents up and down the country. I’ve explored this emotional journey in Siblings Emma’s Story – the characters maybe fictional but I’ve given them the feelings of an adoptee and her family through my experiences.

Eventually, determination paid off and I did find by birth family. What joy! I was rewarded with a birth mother who was still alive plus three fully biological sisters. My birth mother had never forgotten me; she hadn’t simply ‘given me away’ as I’d always believed. Learning of her life’s experiences helped me put into place the last piece of the jigsaw missing from my own life.

Meeting my birth family was both surreal and grounding. Seeing faces that looked like mine for the first time was something I can’t fully describe – a quiet recognition that went deeper than words. But even as I embraced this new connection, my adoptive parents were never far from my heart. Their love gave me the strength to go searching in the first place.

Writing became a form of healing for me. Through fiction, I could explore the emotions and questions I had carried for years – the longing, the confusion, the search for belonging. This became the inspiration behind The Siblings Books – stories built around a fictional family, each character shaped by some aspect of adoption.

Writing heartfelt fiction inspired by real experiences of adoption, identity and belonging, gave me freedom and at the same time ensured that no member of either of my two families could be identified or affected by my words. Through these books, I wanted to give voice to everyone touched by adoption: birth parents, adoptive parents and siblings on both sides.

I now understand that I may have been handed over a pub counter that day, but over the years I’ve learned that love, curiosity, and compassion can build bridges stronger than blood. Adoption is not just a legal act – it’s an ongoing conversation of the heart.

If sharing my story helps even one adoptive parent better understand the quiet complexities of their child’s heart, then it’s worth every word. Adoption taught me that family isn’t defined by blood, but by the courage to love across all kinds of beginnings.

Hilary Coombes is the author of –

Siblings: Emma’s Story  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1835742335 and

Siblings: Kit’s Story  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1068417102

with Siblings: Holly’s Story due for release next year.

If you’re interested you can find out more about her on her website hilarycoombes.com

Or if you prefer to read this piece online here’s the link …
👉 https://wemadeawish.co.uk/through-the-eyes-of-an-adoptee


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A FAMILY STORY

First grandchild – a penguin – and a love story.

(It’s a story that will warm your heart)

A spanking new penguin, straight of the boat

Ten years ago I was a brand new, keen as punch, Grandma. So keen in fact that I wrote a book for my first grandson. And that action has repercussions even today …

It was a very special book because I’d travelled on an overnight ferry from England to Spain, and on that ferry was a children’s entertainer. Unfortunately there were no children on board, so the poor entertainer had to make do with disinterested adults. She tried, she really did, but colouring competitions or blowing balloon shaped animals hardly competed with the draw of the ship’s pub.

I felt sorry for her, so asked her to blow me a balloon penguin. My little grandson loved penguins, and I planned to send him a photo of the penguin on the ship’s deck.

‘From little acorns mighty oak trees grow’, they say. And Pierre the penguin certainly grew in importance, even though he shrank in stature. My grandson was delighted with my balloon penguin, he constantly asked how he was and naturally, being a doting grandma, I sent photos.  As I took those photos it became obvious that Pierre was shrinking day by day. The day he could no longer hold up his head was the light bulb moment.

Why not write a story about Pierre for my grandson? I had lots of photos I could use so why not. I expanded the photoshoots, taking Pierre down to the beach and snapping him looking wistfully out to sea (had to support his head from behind at this point, he’d leaked so much air) – I had some strange looks from people on the beach. The weekly market was another attention-grabbing area, but needs must when you get creative.

The story is about a mischievous penguin named Prince Pierre, who lived in the Arctic. His father, the King Emperor Penguin, had enough of his antics and sent him away to a foreign land, transforming him into a balloon-shaped animal beforehand. He found himself in a country that was hot and vibrant, far away from the icy Arctic. Pierre needed to complete tasks before he could return home, the first of which was to find the special child whose name started with ‘E’. And thus began Pierre’s adventure (and that of my young Grandson).

I put the book together with the pictures in a photo-book. It took me months of messing around, because the software did not like me inserting text instead of a photos. I’m afraid my knowledge of Amazon’s kdp books was non-existent back then (or perhaps kdp didn’t even exist back then).

The finished book

My grandson has the only copy of Pierre’s book, and from the day it was in his hands it became part of our Spanish holidays together. Every visit he wanted to be taken to where Pierre stood on the beach, where Pierre sat in the market, where he sat in the kitchen sink, etc. It was magical and I have very precious memories of these times with my first grandson.

A word of advice here to any budding grandma, never start something like this unless you’re willing to repeat the process if need be. At the time I hadn’t considered that I might have more grandchildren, and in fairness, what you do for the first grandchild you must do for any others that might come along.

I’m now on the fourth book for my youngest granddaughter, a bubbly confident little soul, whom I love very much. She has an adventure on Eel Pie Island, saving squirrels and fighting the wicked Mr Ibigor (don’t all good stories have a ‘baddy’ somewhere!)

This is my draft cover

I’m going to publish this one on Amazon – and I can quite see my other grandchildren wanting their book published too when they find out – so maybe I’m crazy starting this! I used Canva software to put together the cover and am using kdp to put the entire package together – it took me ages, such a lot of learning curves, but I did my best, I really did.

Hope you enjoyed reading this feel-good blog today. Don’t forget you can leave me a message here http://hilarycoombes.author@gmail

I’m soon going back to writing the last in the SIBLINGS trilogy. It’s Holly’s turn and she’s going to be the final sister in the story. I’m enjoying living in their world but it’s been nice to have a change, and pen something lighter to make you smile.

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A TRUE LOVE STORY

‘I love you. I love you. I love you. Much too much’ he wrote.

Throughout my life writing has been my go-to place for solace, but on this occasion it was denied me. My head was buried in a deep emotional vacuum that I wasn’t able to shake off, but light is at the end of the tunnel at last … thank goodness.

My 93-year-old Aunt Esme died two months ago following upon the sadness of the deaths of my Mother and Sister. I’ve found coping with these events difficult. Death is a strange one, you think it’ll never happen and even when the person is elderly it’s a shock when it does.

Esme and John’s story is that of a wonderful shared love, one we’d all wish for given the chance. Telling you about this precious love is how I’m going to cope with losing her. Come with me and celebrate the deep love between a man and a woman, a love that has now been reunited.

Esme was born in 1930 in a room above her parent’s pie and pea shop in Bristol. Instinctively a worrier, she was a shy girl who adored playing the piano and tap dancing. She was never going to marry she said, the comfort of home with her parents suited her fine.  But then life took a turn, just as it has a habit of doing.

This musical, tap dancing girl absorbed the disquiet of the pending second world war from the adults around her, but in 1939 when Chamberlain announced that Britain was at war with Germany she had no idea of the impact this was about to have on her life.

John was born in the 1920’s in a two-up/two-down terraced house in London. The first world war was over, and the boy who was dreaming of becoming a vet knew little of the conflict of war. With the threat of the second world war he was evacuated to the fields of Somerset which suited this quiet boy enormously and his love of animals grew ever large.

Esme’s City was a target for the bombers, it had shipyards, an important harbour and the Bristol Aeroplane factory. She struggled through the nightmare of nightly bombs raining down and on a night in 1940, this young ten-year-old escaped the fire of her own house, only to be almost drowned in the cellar of another. She lost many friends that night. If you’ve always been surrounded by peace, as I have been lucky enough to do, it’s impossible to know how much that must affect the rest of your life.

Esme’s home. Bristol. Bomb Damage. WW2

Meanwhile, John, now a young man, had to postpone his veterinary training when he was called-up to fight for England in the Second World War, a peaceful man, this sat uneasy on his shoulders.

Time passed and at long last the the war ended. Esme’s parents opened another pie and pea shop which happened to be right next door to a vet’s surgery. Cupid must have been on call because immediately after the war John managed to get a job helping out at that surgery and resumed his veterinary training.

It was love at first sight for John, but Esme felt differently. An unworldly eighteen-year-old she hid whenever he visited the shop. And visit he certainly did. Everyday. However, magic must have been in the air for within a year he’d worn down her resistance and they began ‘courting’ which was the beginning of a love affair that was to last for the next sixty-five years.

As part of his veterinary training John had to spend Monday to Friday in London for many months at a time; his weekends were spent travelling to Bristol to see his love, that was if he had enough money for the train fare. He wrote to her two or three times a week, but when money was short he wrote to her every day, sometimes two letters a day, telling her of his love. I only know this because I found a big box of love letters carefully preserved by Esme.

It feels wrong and tremendously personal to peek into any couple’s relationship but having to clear her house I have had no choice. Here is one of the typical letters I have been privileged to read …

(His nickname for her was Junior)

My Darling young Junior

I guess this will be a surprise to hear from me again so soon, but what’s a fellow to do when he’s in love with a pretty girl like you. By the time you receive this letter you will have received my other one.

I bet you’re getting the iron red hot and pressing everything ready for our dance on Saturday. But a word of warning if any of those ‘spivs’ cut in on our dancing I’m going to poke him right on the nose. I’ve waited a whole week without seeing you or saying in person how much I love you. And I want to be by your side every minute. 

I’ve been bunged up with notes and studying this week and now I’m just about all in. At times I have felt like throwing the job up, but next morning I’m okay again and off I go. Don’t worry Junior I shall be my old self by Friday night, knowing that I have you waiting for me.

It’s going to be pretty miserable for me over the next few days without seeing you.  I think of you all the time when I’m at classes and pray for the time to pass quickly until the weekend.

I have had the photos developed and they all came out. Yes! Even you Junior. And now you are in a place of honour, in my small wallet.

So Junior if you haven’t caught on yet …

I love you. I love you. I love you. Much too much.

Well here’s to Friday darling, but I’m afraid now it’s time to say goodnight again. 

All my love, my darling Junior,

Your Johnny

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In time they married and moved in with John’s parents who had now moved from London and lived in Somerset.

As a young couple who adored each other they always hoped for a home of their own and eventually found their ‘forever’ home as we call bricks and mortar nowadays. They turned it into their little love nest for the next sixty odd years. They lived totally for each other, needing no-one else. They were never apart outside of John’s need to go to work each day. Everything they did was for, and with, the other so when after sixty-five years the inevitable parting finally came, Esme sank into deep despair and the depression affected her life for the next nine years.

‘I want to be with my John,’ she’d say every time I visited. ‘Why won’t God take me too.’ Nothing consoled this distraught woman who pined every day for her lost love. She may have been frail; she may have been old, but her dearest wish was always to be with her John.

That wish came true recently when a brain embolism caused a stroke that reunited her with her darling John.

My grief for the Aunt I loved, the Aunt I looked out for most of my life, is tinged with the knowledge that she is with the man she loved all her life. Both my Aunt and Uncle used to say that I was the daughter they never had, and my grief feels like that of a daughter.

I miss her so very much, her life was always intertwined with mine, but I have the memories, especially the wonderful memories before John died. And it would be selfish of me not to rejoice in her happiness. 

At last she’s where she’s wanted to be for an extremely long time … with her John.

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ON THE RADIO … Me! yes little ol’ me

In the late 1960s Andy Warhol famously said: “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.” Well, I’ve just had my quota because I was interviewed on the radio for 16 minutes last week. And my oh my nobody could have predicted what a crazy experience it was going to be.

The date and time of the interview was set months before and on the due date Hannah Murray, my interviewer, rang me from Talk Radio Europe. What I didn’t know when the interview date was originally agreed was that our house would be chock-a-block with builders putting insulation in all the upstairs ceilings on that date. It’s a job that’s needed doing for years but with increasingly hot summers it had become essential.

The day arrived and I think the builders decided that this would be the day to reach tumultuous noise heights. Requests to please lower the noise met with blank looks and responses that lasted only a few minutes.

I did a dummy run in every downstairs room and even with the room door shut it was impossible to hear. Next was the front garden … no luck. Side of the house … same result. Okay moving to the back garden was my final hope … nope, not to be.

The clock was ticking and I needed to do something quickly. Short of shooting the builders my mind was blank but then I had a lightbulb moment … I’d sit in the car. It sort of worked, at least the banging was muffled. Nevertheless, I had to drive away from the house to make things a little better.

Hannah, the interviewer, advised to sit still and not move the computer (which was on my lap) and hopefully all might be well. I tried, I really did, but my legs wouldn’t stop shaking and this was when I lost the notes I’d made in the hope they would get me through my nerves. So there was nothing for it but to cruise impromptu style and keep my fingers crossed.

I sat petrified of moving, petrified of what was to come, petrified of the noise around me and hoping that a juggernaut didn’t pass the car when things were seriously underway.

All I can say is that Hannah couldn’t have been nicer, such a lovely interviewer, but she got me on the back foot when she asked about ME. Me! Little old regular me. I thought we’d be talking mainly about my book which although fiction was drawn from personal experience. However, she gently coaxed information about my adoption, my long search, my ‘two’ mothers, the new family that I’d found at fifty, plus the tumultuous effect this had on everyone around me. Until I started talking about it all I’d considered my life to be very ordinary, but from the feedback I’ve received since the broadcast I realise that it’s not all that ordinary after all.

Luckily there was not much background noise in the recording that went out, at least not enough to be a problem, but I’m afraid there’s catch in my voice when I talk about my birth mother.

Of course ‘Siblings Kit’s Story’ is also mentioned, it’s the first in a trilogy and all three books will in some way embrace my experiences as an adoptee plus the thought (erroneously no doubt) of always being on the outside of life looking in.

This is the ‘SIBLINGS Kit’s Story’ book that caused me to be sitting in my parked car trying to do a radio broadcast in the middle of traffic.

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I NEEDED A MAN FOR THE COVER OF MY BOOK and this is what happened!

I need a man!

What I needed was a man. Not just any man. He had to be tall (ish), fairly good-looking (from the back!) and slightly tanned.

A male model would have been good, but I didn’t have one of those, so my husband volunteered in chivalrous manner; that was after I twisted his arm a little. He didn’t put up too many objections though.

Now, I had my model, the big problem is my lovely hubby is no longer in his mid 30’s, and my model man needed to be. Still I thought, we’ll probably get around it in some way, and at least it’s a back view.

We needed to put the alarm clock on

So, there we were eight in the morning on our local Spanish beach. It had to be eight o’clock because by nine o’clock hoards of holidaymakers would arrive and spread out their towels, beach umbrellas and all that paraphernalia, just where I wanted to capture a picture of my lone man gazing longingly out to sea. He was supposed to be nostalgically thinking about the woman he loved and had been forced to leave behind. (Not that my hubby was actually thinking this, you understand, well hopefully not!).

I’d asked hubby to wear a red tee shirt, and as he planned to travel on to a game of bowls immediately after this photo-shoot, he was otherwise dressed in white. Perfect, I thought, those colours would go with the font colour theme I’d chosen.

I was carried away by my paparazzi role and felt I was the bees knees with my hubby’s super duper Canon cord slung casually around my neck, (proper Annie Leibovitz or David Bailey style).

Okay. Quiet please. Take …

(Clapperboard needed really)

Anyway we began. ‘Look this way’, snap snap; ‘look that way’ snap snap. Let’s shoot over there by the rocks ‘shoulders back’ snap snap; ‘can you put your arms behind your back’ snap snap. Let’s try some close-ups now. ‘Can you lean nonchalantly against the empty life-guard’s chair ‘ snap snap. I’m sure you get the picture. (excuse pun)

I was quite enjoying this (not sure about hubby but he’s very patient … sometimes). There were a few people watching by now, but nobody clapped or anything.

Bad hair day

Ahh, then it hit me. My hubby’s hair colour! Boy oh boy, it really spoiled the thirty-odd year old image I was trying to capture. What to do! I rushed to the parked car and rescued his hat … not his white flat bowling cap of course …that just wouldn’t have done at all!

Snap snap all over again, but this time wearing a sunhat. We had a much larger crowd watching now, but still nobody clapped!

Two hundred or so pictures later it was ‘Goodbye hubby, have a good game of bowls. See you later’. I started to pack up the camera bits and pieces ready for the walk home. The ‘audience’ was now streaming passed me and fighting for the best places near the sea, but I was surprised when this little old lady tapped me on the arm.

Fame

“He’s famous isn’t he?” she asked. Her shiny white suntan creamed face mesmerised me for a second.

I nodded (naughty I know).

“I thought so. I recognised him from the tele.”

I don’t know who she thought my hubby was, and thank goodness she didn’t ask me his name, for I have no idea what I would have said. Had I had my wits about me, I might have opted for Kevin Costner; because years back I thought he was quite dishy. Still I wasn’t put in that position, thank goodness.

I expect you’d like to see the finished photo … yes?

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