An estimated 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976. I was one of them

After my adoptive father died in November last year, my adoptive siblings found a short story by Enid Blyton among his possessions. The Child Who Was Chosen was read to us as children to explain the circumstances of my adoption. It follows a nice middle-class couple whose domestic bliss is marred by childlessness, prompting them to go to a “very kind lady” who helps them to find a “chosen baby” instead. In its foreword, Blyton advises adoptive parents to tell the tale to their adopted child “again and again … so that to him ‘adoption’ means something lovely”.

The “chosen child” narrative, where parents tell adoptees they were specially picked, helped to shape the still widespread public perception of adoption as unambiguously altruistic. But it has also long been criticised by adult adoptees for masking the trauma of separation from their original parents. Reading Blyton’s saccharine story, I was struck by its glaring omissions. There is no mention of how the boy, who is unnamed until he is adopted, came to be put up for adoption; nor any suggestion that he once had another family and identity. There is no recognition of his first mother or her loss, only the loneliness of the prospective adoptive mother. The woman from the adoption agency also tells the couple that if this child isn’t the one they really want, she will find another one – as though she’s running a baby market.

David Batty is a news editor and writer for the Guardian

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Between 1949 and 1976, an estimated 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption in England and Wales

Starmer said what happened to the mothers, and their children, should never have happened. He said:

What happened to them, and to tens of thousands of mothers, children, and families, should never have happened. It is a stain on our history.

Mothers, many young, vulnerable, and without support were coerced, bullied, or misled into feeling that they had no choice but to have their children taken away from them. What a thing to do.

I have to confess, as I said to them this morning, I found it hard to read the testimonies and to hear their stories.

I find it particularly hard, as a dad. How much harder it must have been for them to go through that, to set out their testimonies and tell their stories over and over again.

Guardian news editor David Batty spent years longing to meet his birth mother. But his reunion with the woman who had been forced to give him up was far from a fairytale ending. He explains why the legacy of forced adoption continues to cast such a long shadow

David Batty was seven years old when he was told he had been adopted. Years later, after learning more about his birth parents, he wanted to meet them. But when he was reunited with his mother, who had been forced to give him up, their relationship became strained.

David tells Annie Kelly how he came to be one of tens of thousands of children whose birth mothers were coerced into relinquishing them for adoption, often in the name of child’s “moral welfare”. The Church of England has apologised for its role in forced adoptions, and the government has indicated it will follow suit.