A Family Reunion

When Jenny Tucker planned a holiday in Thailand with her sister and niece, it was against a moving backstory of family secrets and the power of love

Even with the best will in the world, family holidays can be fraught. While you might get along at sporadic gatherings throughout the year, spending 10 days together can be another matter. Would this work, I wondered, as I wheeled my suitcase to meet my elder sister Lynne, and fly halfway across the world.

I hadn’t been on holiday with Lynne since I was 12 years old, when we went to a holiday camp on the Isle of Wight and she won Miss Whitecliff Bay and I sang Puff the Magic Dragon in the ‘Under 13s Talent Show’ (I didn’t win). So I wasn’t sure what to expect when she suggested we travel to Thailand together to meet up with her daughter, Donna – my niece – who lives in Australia.

There is a backstory to my relationship with Donna. I was three years old when she was born; my sister was 15. It was themid-60s and teenage pregnancy was a big deal. My parents told Lynne that she had to stop seeing her 17-year-old boyfriend, Brian, leave school, and that when the baby was born, it would be passed on for adoption. In those days teenagers did what they were told. Kind of. Lynne didn’t stop seeing Brian, and secretly met him whenever she could. When baby Donna arrived, she was taken away by social services and the adoption papers were prepared.

But love gets its hooks into a person. A few days before Donna was to be signed over to another family, Lynne confessed to our mother that she was still seeing Brian, they wanted to keep the baby and get married. Any other parent would think this was verging on mania but our mother saw something in her daughter that convinced her to take control of this family’s destiny. Donna was brought home.