Zara Phillips, a 60-year-old singer-songwriter, has described being taken from her birth mother shortly after she was born in 1964 and has joined former victims and campaigners calling for an official UK apology after recent revelations about mass unmarked burials of babies at a former mother-and-baby home.
Phillips said her birth mother, known as Pat, was left alone to give birth at the Tower Maternity Annexe in north London on Nov. 5, 1964, and that, after complications and treatment for haemorrhaging, she returned to the delivery suite to find the newborn had been removed and placed in foster care. Phillips was adopted three months later and did not meet Pat until 1988.
Phillips recounted enduring secrecy, stigma and family tensions that followed her adoption. She said she grew up aware she was adopted but that the topic was kept quiet by her adoptive mother, who feared being devastated by contact with Phillips's birth mother. Phillips said the lack of openness contributed to years of substance misuse and later shaped her decision to search for and eventually reconnect with her birth parents. She found Pat in 1988 and later used DNA testing to locate her birth father and extended family in the United States.
Her testimony comes as investigators and campaigners respond to ITV News reporting that about 67 babies who died at Hopedene Maternity Home in Newcastle between 1950 and 1973 were buried in unmarked graves without their families' knowledge. Hopedene was run by the Salvation Army and served unmarried mothers; the discovery renewed calls for a UK-wide reckoning over practices at mother-and-baby homes and forced adoptions that took place in the postwar decades.
From 1949 to 1976, an estimated quarter of a million pregnant women and girls were sent to mother-and-baby homes run by churches, charities and state institutions in the UK. Many were unmarried and said to be socially unacceptable as parents at the time; children were frequently placed for adoption, often without what survivors describe as genuine consent. A 2021 report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the state bore ultimate responsibility for the suffering caused during the forced-adoption era and recommended a formal government apology.
Phillips has written a memoir and produced a film, both titled Somebody's Daughter, and works with the Movement for Adoption Apology and Adult Adoptee group. She organised a petition and helped lead a protest to Downing Street in July attended by around 100 people, pressing ministers for recognition and redress. "We don't want just, 'Oh, we're so sorry'," she said, urging a public event and acknowledgement similar to apologies issued in other countries, including the Republic of Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Australia and Canada.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown has publicly urged the government to apologise for what he called the "terrible tragedy" of forced adoption, saying it should happen in the House of Commons and that autumn would be an appropriate time. A government spokesperson told the Daily Mail: "This abhorrent practice should never have taken place, and our deepest sympathies are with all those affected. We take this issue extremely seriously and continue to engage with those affected to provide support."
The Salvation Army has said it is "deeply saddened" by accounts of traumatic experiences at Hopedene and acknowledged that some people did not receive the support they needed, offering to share archive material where possible. Newcastle City Council has previously issued an apology to families affected by the mass burial discovered at the Hopedene site.
Survivors and campaigners differ on what they seek beyond an apology. Phillips said financial compensation, as provided in the Republic of Ireland, would not be her primary aim; she said investment in specialist therapeutic services for adoptees and birth mothers would be more valuable. "If they're going to give us any money, it should go to helping with the emotional challenges we have," she said.
Phillips described the social pressures that led to secrecy and shame in the 1960s, saying unmarried pregnancy was treated as a grave social transgression and that some families hid expectant daughters to avoid scandal. She recalled her birth mother being relocated to a mother-and-baby home and being made to do household work while heavily pregnant. Other mothers have described similar experiences of enforced labour, restricted contact with their infants and coercion into adoption.
After reconnecting with Pat, Phillips said she initially responded with anger and judgment but later developed greater understanding through support groups and counselling. She said reconciling with both her adoptive and birth mothers was complex, including tension with her adoptive mother, who had struggled with infertility and feared being replaced. Phillips said the women eventually spoke on the phone before her adoptive mother's death, giving her a sense of resolution.
Campaigners argue that prompt action is urgent because many mothers are elderly and some have already died. The Joint Committee's 2021 findings called for recognition of the harm caused and recommended a formal apology; campaigners have said an apology should be accompanied by measures to identify burial sites, provide records, deliver counselling and consider financial redress.
Media reporting and survivor testimony have increased public attention to forced-adoption practices in the UK, prompting renewed scrutiny of institutional records, church and charity archives, and local authority files. Authorities and charities involved have said they will cooperate with enquiries and are willing to help people access records, but also warned that archives may not contain all answers sought by families.
Phillips said she continues to hear from survivors and remains active in advocacy, offering to assist those seeking information through her website. She said her personal work is aimed at ensuring the experiences of mothers and adoptees are formally acknowledged and that future generations learn from the abuses of the past.