A day in court

In 1971 as a teenager, I fell in love and ran away with a man I had met at work in Birmingham -my but not his, hometown. We shacked up together in a miserable room in Bedford. It wasnt working out, and after a few months I went back home, understanding that M was also moving on - he was something of a hippy drifter. It became clear after a while that i was pregnant. My son was born in December 1971 and having no support I claimed state benefits. I was told in order to do this I had to co-operate in identifying the baby's father. At that time a voluntary organisation worked with single mothers in doing this. They had no luck in finding M, but we had to take forward a case for maintenance in the courts in his absence. On the due day, i turned up at Birmingham Crown Court to meet the ladies from this organisation. I was shocked and distressed to suddenly see M striding across the foyer of the court building. When he had passed, I saw the ladies and asked where they had found him and why they hadnt warned me. They looked blankly at me.....I explained that I had just seen him, and they talked to court officials who found a policeman to accompany me to various courtrooms looking for him. When I spotted M in the public gallery of a courtroom, the policeman beckoned him outside where I had to tell him that he was the father of a baby boy and I was attending court that day to claim maintenance! We ended up in court together with the magistrate/judge making an order. M explained to me that he was living in Liverpool (after having lived in a few places in the intervening year) and had come to Birmingham for the day for a job interview. As he was much too early he had decided to go to court and sit in on a case......