21 Oct 2007

I have a home

I live in a small fishing hamlet in the north of england. tell me...

what do you like most/least about fishing villages?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

My knowledge on this is pretty basic, but there is a ton of adoption information on the web that might be useful for you, if you want to look there. As far as I know, in the 1950's adoption was generally regarded as something to be kept secret, and very few mothers had contact information for their children following the adoption. The adopted child would probably not have information about his birth family, and may not know he was adopted. The general view was that the child would be fine in the adoptive family without ever knowing the circumstances of their birth, and that the birth mother should move on with her life, and things would be better if she pretended it had never happened. There was no such thing as post-adoption counseling, and many birth mothers didn't know how to cope with the depression that can come with placing a child.

The truth might come out as the mother drinks too much and talks about her regrets about her younger life, or says that she got a birthday present - the brother had sought her out and made contact, and she wanted to share that with the rest of the family. Maybe someone at the party starts talking about adoption, and Mom goes into her experiences, shocking your MC. Maybe she feels she is running out of time and would like to see her son once more before she dies.

Anonymous said...

When I think 'fishing village' I think of the tiny coastal villages in Cornwall that don't have a great deal of tourism, so they're still small and quaint. They have salty sea-smell, colourful little houses, ridiculously steep and narrow roads, and most everyone seems to own a boat in the quay. I'm sure the population is probably older, as there's maybe one primary school in the village and the high school in the next big town. Man, I miss Cornwall.

Anonymous said...

I used to live near a fishing village in New England and I loved to sit by the water and watch the boats come in around 6 pm and then catch the sunset. It was so beautiful and peaceful. I have a lot of photographs from that time. I don't know if Lily would have the patience to just sit and ruminate by the water though.

Solomon said...

Hi Lily.
I'm from England, and my grandmother used to live in a small fishing village.
I miss it terribly. I loved the smell of salt on the air and the closeness of the community.
Every Sunday, everyone would gather at one person's house to eat dinner. When it was my grandmother's turn, she cooked enough for her village and the next one over. All the fishermen loved her dearly, and brought her the best fish to use on her Sundays.
~Solomon