Lord Eatwell was adopted when he was six months old by carpenter Jack and seamstress Mary.
The 72-year-old, who is the chairman of the Jersey Financial Services Commission, said that it was his adoptive parents who set the tone and direction of his life, and that they were the reason that he was supporting Fostering and Adoption Jersey’s annual campaign.
Lord Eatwell, who was chief economic adviser to Neil Kinnock when he was leader of the Labour Party, and who set up one of Britain’s leading think tanks – the Institute for Public Policy Research – said that being adopted was the most important thing that had happened to him.
‘My life would have been completely different without them,’ he said. ‘Being adopted by two wonderful people has given me a permanent feeling of being lucky.’
Lord Eatwell, who sits in the House of Lords as a non-affiliated peer, was born in south-west England and adopted in Swindon in 1945.
‘My natural father was a GI,’ he said. ‘My mother didn’t want me and didn’t want any connection with me after I was born.’
A father himself, of three children and two step-children, he went to a local state school and later secured a place at the University of Cambridge to study economics. He then studied for a PhD at Harvard before returning to Cambridge as an economics lecturer.
‘I was incredibly lucky to have the parents that I did. They were people who loved children,’ Lord Eatwell said.
‘They were very bookish people. My father read lots of travel books and my mother read a lot – especially Jane Austen novels.
‘There were always lots of books around the house and reading was an activity the family did regularly. I was always supported academically and that helped drive me.’
It was not until he was 21 that Lord Eatwell found out that he was adopted.
‘My main concern at the time was for my adoptive parents,’ he said. ‘I remember my mother saying: “I’m not your real mother.” I thought that was ridiculous because of course she was. My father had gone to bed because he couldn’t approach the discussion.
‘I went up and spoke with him afterwards.
‘My overwhelming feeling was curiosity, rather than it being an emotional thing.’
After finding out he had been adopted, Lord Eatwell had the opportunity to meet his birth father.
He said: ‘Through a series of remarkable incidents, I met my father just once – it was extremely interesting but not emotional. It was part of my life history, but that was it.’
Lord Eatwell said that the adoption process had changed lots within the past seven decades, but that he felt the procedures used now were right.
‘I know the procedure when I was adopted was much faster than nowadays,’ he said. ‘Social Services take great care over the whole adoption procedure and I think that’s only a good thing. It’s very important for Social Services to be doing that and the message should be: “We want to make this a success.”’
He added: ‘I think adoptive parents should not feel like they are substitutes – they are the real parents. I felt that very strongly.
‘Adopting can be the most immensely rewarding experience. It will bring with it some trials and tribulations, but that is something that all natural parents will also go through.
‘I think adopting can bring an extra dimension of reward.’
For more information visit gov.je/Caring/Children/FosteringAdoption.
