Lockdown reunion for mum and adopted son after more than 50 years

Tony and Sandra had not been together since he was a week old

A woman who had to give up her week-old baby for adoption has been reunited with her son during the pandemic.

Sandra Hobson said she was just 16 when she was forced to hand over her young boy in Coventry in 1966.

Stuart - now called Tony - tracked her down during last year's lockdown, and after several online meet-ups the pair were finally reunited.

Ms Hobson, 71, who now lives in Hinckley, Leicestershire, said seeing her son again was "emotional".

Parliament is set to hear from mothers who say they were forced into giving up their babies at birth because they were unmarried.

About 250,000 women in the 1950s, 60s and 70s are believed to be affected.

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Ms Hobson said she had kept the secret of her first son from her family and friends all her life, and as mothers were not allowed to search for the children at the time, she felt she would never see him again.

She had no idea he had been searching for her since he was a teenager, and after he signed up with a Facebook group helping adoptees look for birth parents they finally met up - initially online - in June last year.

"Everybody had been in lockdown, and here I am now finding that I've become a mum again at the age of 70," she said.

"All this time had passed, and although he was always in my thoughts, I never ever thought I would see him again.

"I thought about him all the time - he was never out [of] my mind."

'Emotional rollercoaster'

As Tony had managed to track her down during the first lockdown last year, Ms Hobson said their first meetings were through phone calls and video messaging.

She said the whole process was "an emotional rollercoaster", and at their first meeting she said they "bonded right away".

So much so, both Ms Hobson and her husband and Tony and his partner have been able to holiday together.

"We've got a motor home, they've got a caravan, my other son's got a caravan, so we're able to do holidays where you can still socially distance," she said.

"You're still apart from one another but you're together, and going forward it can only improve."

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