Q. As a child growing up in Newcastle, Co Down, you were told you were adopted. Was that traumatic?
A. My mother told me, but I can’t remember what age I was when she did so. But she did do it in the only way to do these things, which was to wait until I was old enough to have some cognisance of what she was saying. Of course, I didn’t understand it completely but it was very beautifully put: "We chose you." She said all the right sort of things. Just a few months later a friend of my sister came out with: "Oh, you’re adopted." I think if I hadn’t been told previously by my mother and I’d had to question it then I think I would have found that very, very difficult. There’s nothing to be gained by keeping any of these things in, it’s better for people just to be honest.