
Wales News Service
A woman decided to go on the ITV quiz show Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the hope of winning enough money to fund a trip to Australia to track down the son she gave up for adoption.
Dawn Harkins, 61, from Wales had given Glyn, 45, up for adoption when she was just 15 years old.
Living in a home for unmarried mums and babies, she had named the little boy Kevin, but spent just six weeks with him before her parents had him adopted.
She said in 1967 girls 'didn't have an option' and that she came back to the home one day to 'find them taking my baby away'.
"I asked if I could give him a kiss and that was the last I saw of him," she said.
Kevin went to live with a family from Manchester, who named him Glyn, and took him to live in Australia when he was a teenager.
Dawn said that 'no mum ever forgets her child' and that she was glad she had finally got the chance to meet Glyn and to 'give him a great big hug'.
Dawn won £75,000 on the show, and flew straight to Brisbane with her winnings. Speaking from Australia, she said:
"I never thought I'd see my son again so it's amazing to actually be out here. I might not have gone home a millionaire - but this trip is worth more than that anyway. I feel like the richest woman in the world."
Dawn went on to marry and have two other children, and it was her daughter Samantha, 41, who managed to track Glyn down.
Glyn, who is married to Alison and has two daughters, Jessica, 15, and Natalie, 14, said it was 'fantastic' to meet his mum.
"I'm so glad she got those questions right!" he said.
What a lovely story!
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Wise words on motherhood
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- <p> “I was not a classic mother...I didn’t bake cookies. You can buy cookies, but you can’t buy love.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Raquel Welch </strong> </p>

- <p> <strong><em>“</em></strong>Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shovelling the walk before it stops snowing.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Phyllis Diller</strong></p>

- <p> “Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he is buying.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Fran Lebowitz</strong></p>

- <p> “Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside.”</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Rita Rudner</strong></p>

- <p> “Having a baby is like watching two very inefficient removal men trying to get a very large sofa through a very small doorway, only in this case you can't say, 'Oh, sod it, bring it through the French windows.'"</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Victoria Wood</strong></p>

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- <p> “A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.<strong>"</strong></p> <p> <strong>Author </strong><strong>Tenneva Jordan </strong></p>

- <p> "The first time you leave your child at school you're faced with a tough decision - down the pub or back to bed?”</p> <p> <strong>Comedienne Jo Brand</strong></p>

- <p> "There never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep.” </p> <p> <strong>Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson</strong></p>

- <p> “A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child."</p> <p> <strong>Actress Sophia Loren </strong></p>

- <p> "Any mother could perform the jobs of several air-traffic controllers with ease."</p> <p> <strong>American writer Lisa Alther</strong></p>

- <p> “Nothing will ever make you as happy or sad, as proud or as tired as motherhood.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Elia Parsons</strong></p>

- <p> "A mother “is a nutritionist, a child psychologist, an engineer, a production manager, an expert buyer, all in one.”</p> <p> <strong>Anthropologist Margaret Mead </strong></p>

- <p> “Motherhood is “having someone else to blame when there is a rude smell in the air.”</p> <p> <strong>Actress Jane Horrocks</strong></p>

- <p> “You know you really are a mother when: you use your own saliva to clean your child's face; your child throws up and you catch it.”</p> <p> <strong>Humorist Erma Bombeck</strong></p>

- <p> “The story of a mother’s life: Trapped between a scream and a hug.”</p> <p> <strong>Cartoonist</strong><strong> Cathy Guisewite</strong></p>

- <p> “Motherhood is not for the fainthearted. Frogs, skinned knees, and the insults of teenage girls are not meant for the wimpy.”</p> <p> <strong>Author Danielle Steel</strong></p>

- <p> “Never being number one in your list of priorities and not minding at all.”</p> <p> <strong>Model and designer Jasmine Guinness</strong></p>

- <p> “Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help mom with the dishes.”</p> <p> <strong>Writer P.J. O’Rourke </strong></p>





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