‘I was wrapped in newspaper and abandoned by a canal as a newborn baby – then abused for decades by my foster dad’
When Richard Gallear was abandoned by his mother at just a few hours old, he wasn't expected to survive the night
A MUFFLED cry and hurried footsteps echoed through the darkness as Lucy Cunningham fled the canal path where she'd just abandoned her premature newborn baby boy.
For reasons known only to her, on a bitterly cold November evening after secretly giving birth, the 36-year-old mum decided to wrap her scrawny baby - who was just hours old - in newspaper before leaving him just inches from the rat-infested water's edge.
Miraculously, despite being premature, Richard - as he was later named by nurses - was rescued by postman Joseph Lester and his rescue made front page news.
His mum Lucy was admitted to the same Birmingham hospital after suffering birthing complications and nurses quickly realised she was the abandoned baby's mum.
But tragically, she refused to see her baby boy - who was the result of an illicit affair - and he was sent to a children's home.
But while having an unimaginably cruel start to life, Richard's suffering didn't end there.
At the age of five he was adopted by Pearl and Arnold Gallear, and while his new mother was caring and loving, his new father, a cruel and vicious man, who violently beat him.
Here, speaking to The Sun Online, Richard Gallear, now 64, shares his heart-wrenching story...
Born on the bank of the canal and wrapped in newspaper
Richard's harrowing story began on November 17, 1954, when his mother gave birth to him alone on the bank of the canal.
Roughly severing his umbilical chord, she wrapped him in two layers of newspaper and abandoned him at the water's edge before he was discovered two hours later at 9pm and rushed to hospital.
Suffering from exposure after being left in freezing temperatures, the nurses were so unsure he was going to last the night, they got him baptised.
Richard says: "Although the doctors didn’t think I’d survive, I shocked them with my fighting spirit.
"While I was in hospital, the newspapers were full of articles about the abandoned ‘canal-side baby’."
'He laid into me, fists flailing, blow after blow'
In 1959, Richard finally found the family life he'd craved, when he was fostered by Pearl and Arnold Gallear.
However, the reality was far from the idyllic happy home Richard envisioned.
Although stay-at-home mum Pearl was kind and loving, her insurance executive husband Arnold - who to the outside world came across as a pillar of the community- was anything but.
He showed his true colours immediately, violently beating Richard on the way home from the care home after he threw up in the van, an indicator of what was to come.
Richard explains: "It was a very warm day and soon it became uncomfortably hot and airless in the back of the van and I began to feel ill.
"Suddenly I was sick. I vomited all down the front of my clothes and my legs - everywhere.
"Arnold flung his door open and stomped round to the back of the van and yanked the door open.
"At the side of the road he laid into me, fists flailing, blow after blow, shouting at me all the while."
Battered and called a stupid, useless b*****d
Richard continues: "I wasn’t allowed to be in the same room as him, and he took delight in punching, kicking and screaming abuse at me.
"He called me stupid, useless and a b*****d every day for 10 years, and I began to think that I was rotten.
"In one of the worst attacks when I was six, Arnold came home from work in a mood and because I was in his way.
"He picked me and the trike I was sitting on up and threw me at a brick wall.
"Miraculously, I didn’t break any bones although I was badly battered and bruised."
Despite Pearl's attempts to stop Arnold by pleading with him to stop, it had little effect.
Richard says: "The worst incidents happened at night when Arnold would burst into my bedroom and start punching and kicking me.
"His 'excuse' to attack me would be because I'd wet the bed or made too much noise - other times there wasn't any justification."
Over the coming years Richard learned to stay out of Arnold's way, regularly going without meals and hiding in his room.
"I didn’t know who to turn to and although I saw a social worker each year, they didn’t talk to me alone," he says.
"Arnold was always there, so when they asked if I was happy, I just said yes."
'My biggest regret was never saying another word to her'
As he got older, Richard struggled to live under the same roof as his domineering stepdad, and as soon as he could, at the age of 15, he left the family home into a bedsit, taking up a sales job in a department store.
He says: "I hated him, not only because of what he had done to me, but for what he was doing to Pearl.
"I felt so guilty leaving her. She was such a good woman but so frightened of him. It turned her into a nervous wreck."
However, just when he believed he was finally free, a horrific motorcycle crash with a minibus forced him back within reach of Arnold's temper.
He says: "I was badly injured which meant I had to go back to Pearl and Arnold’s to recover.
";However, I didn’t stay long. As soon as I was well I found a residential job working in a hotel and left once and for all.
"I didn’t contact Pearl or Arnold after that. Although I was only 17 I was worried that my being in her life, would cause heartache for Pearl.
"My biggest regret is that I didn’t ever say another word to her."
In 2009, when he was 55, Richard - who never married - decided to find out exactly what happened all those years ago, after finally feeling strong enough to cope with the full truth.
He says: "With the help of the After Adoption charity, I was given a file which contained copies of newspaper clippings about my birth.
"Upon seeing the articles I burst into tears as I read the details of the case.
"I had always believed my birth mother must have been young, but the newspaper gave her age as 36. I presumed she gave me away to be looked after because her family disapproved – but I learnt she was anything but an innocent victim.
"The file also contained several photos of me that I had never seen before.
"I asked if my mother had ever seen photos of me and was stunned when I was told that although she’d been offered pictures, she declined to see them. I was devastated to know this, and it felt like another huge rejection.
"I learnt that both my birth parents died – my mother in 1984, and my father not long after which was devastating. I had a romantic notion that one day I'd get to meet them and we'd have some kind of relationship.
"It breaks my heart that I didn’t ever get the chance to speak to my mother. I would have loved to asked her why she left me.
"I made a decision that I would visit Perry Barr Crematorium in Birmingham where her ashes were buried in the Garden of Remembrance.
"I went there on a sunny day in late summer last year and placed a single-stem white rose on the spot.
"My mum hadn’t wanted to know me but as I stood there I felt very sad at the thought of everything I'd been through in my life. I've experienced so much abuse, rejection and hurt."
Richard decided at that moment to write a memoir about gus tempestuous upbringing.
";Writing my story was incredibly painful at times and I was in tears frequently as I called some of the abuse I suffered," he says.
"However, it was also cathartic and I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to share my story and to show to others that just because awful things happen to you, doesn’t mean you have to become an awful person.
"I've accepted my past and I feel lucky that I finally know who I am."
The Forgotten Child by Richard Gallear is out now, £7.99