Britain's Secret War Babies: 'After 77 Years, I Finally Know Who My Father Is' | This Morning

[Music] get ready with the tissues because a new emotional one-off documentary britain's secret war babies investigates the children born to black american gis and british women during the second world war one man at the heart of the documentary is john stockley who grew up never knowing his father and knowing very little about his heritage however during the channel 4 documentary john unravels some of the secrets surrounding his birth let's take a look and we are delighted to have john with us here this morning john it's lovely to see you thank you for coming in good morning good morning it's an amazing story let's start with you growing up in weymouth and tell us a little bit about your upbringing well i was born on may the seventh the last day of the war effectively um in weymouth and uh my mother was eva she was born just along the coast in burton bradstock and i was brought up uh inside dorset by my grandmother right and grandfather my step-grandmother and grandfather they were my stepfather's family um at moonfleet little village just outside of weymouth um a wonderful idyllic place to be brought up if you know it's behind the chaser beach the fleet lagoon it's a gorgeous place my grandfather was a farmer and fisherman he he was an ex-royal marine he was an old man then and but great people fantastic people um one thing that sticks in my mind we had no electricity until so but really the first 10 years of my life was spent with two wonderful people i was very lucky because my stepfather had come back from the second world war um and was greeted with a black child you can't imagine he should have walked away that when he saw but he didn't he stayed and he punished my mother really until the day she died he wasn't a nice person he had a weird psychological way he was a racist um didn't like black people things that i remember things like when martin luther king came on the television and would speak about the freedom marches in the 60s and things like that my stepfather would say that man deserves to be shot really wow and what does that do to you as a little boy that's growing up where you're growing up and i s essentially being brought up by two white parents yes how does that make you feel about your identity well it was very difficult at times um but i i mean i i used to i would go to over to chisel beach with my grandfather fishing um and would sit on the beach as a very young child and look across this is strange hey this manifested itself and look across the ocean and think america's there i'm going to go there one day not never knowing never thinking that i had any connection with it wow but this unconscious thing and in the little church where my grandmother my step-grandmother was church warden in the war the americans were camped in the woods all around there secretly so the germans wouldn't see them and when they left there were the stars and stripes was left in the church it's still there today you can still go to holy trinity church in fleet and see that american flag and uh my grandmother used to hold me up to touch the flag when i was very very small and i can remember going into church every time i'd look up at this stars and stripes and but i didn't know what my what that meant you didn't know what that meant so when did you work out find out that you were the son of an american gi well there was always things nothing was where i live there were 16 of us mixed race cats wow 16. um in weymouth and portland and uh slowly but surely we became aware of each other one of my first times i was playing i went to play a game of football when i was about seven or eight for st john's school my school and went to westhaven school ran out on the pitch and there was a black kid who i'd never seen before um and his name was paul nash he turned out to be my closest friend um funny thing that day i was on the on the wing he was on the wing and we were chasing the ball little kids and our goalkeeper's father was there um he was a keen football supporter and supported the school team shouting at me run run and i remember we stopped paul and i and looked at each other as if to say who's he talking but this was not mr parker wasn't a racist he was a term why is that uncomfortable i mean we've read so much about you the documentary is on wednesday at 9 00 pm on channel 4. you lived in a time where you saw signs did you see this you saw signs that said no blacks no irish no dogs yes how does one survive i mean what did you do you i were grouped with dogs yes yes yes yes we were above the dogs so andy oh great um it that was a school trip from from school to go to see the greenwich meridian um so we we a group of us caught a train up from weymouth up to waterloo some of them had never been to london the kids and we got a coach from waterloo out to greenwich and remember going through london and seeing signs seeing that signs in windows no blacks no i and in the traffic the bus stopped and i'm looking at these signs and thinking in my mind well in our down our way in the guest the houses would say vacancies or no vacancy yeah yeah what does this thing mean so different um so in the documentary there's obviously lots of emotional moments you're discovering who your father is but there's a one particular moment where you meet your half brother we've got a little clip let's take a look at it now so much joy so much joy though the best documentaries always come from places that people were never expecting you weren't necessarily expecting this documentary has it changed your life absolutely it's uh it's i feel i when i as an only child i've come back as one of nine i've got brothers it's something i always dreamed of and for my f and for my family it's uh they've been they've been fantastic they have been so good and i suppose it's so nice for you to fill in all of those yeah those gaps that you know moments and still doing so yeah and i'm sure that will keep there's more to come there is more to come well i'm so happy for you yeah i really really am i mean what a nice ending of a story that's been very very difficult yeah and you got to meet sean fletcher yes yes yes wonderful man well i won't go that far he's all right he's all right he's lovely it's a great it's a fascinating story wednesday night 9pm on channel 4. thank you so much for coming welcome thank you lovely to talk to you

Channel: This Morning

Views: 299,422

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv

Id: GkPjOVb0QRw

Length: 8min 50sec (530 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2022