Archives for Family

The first contact with my father in 28 years... (September 30, 2005) Deep breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. Where to start? Um. Probably I should start with the standard preamble. The story so far. Right. It's pretty much all contained within the Family category of this site, but for those of you...

In which it all starts to become real... (September 10, 2005) On May 17th this year, I took a very small step towards trying to find my biological father who I haven't seen since I was about five, twenty-eight years ago. I rang up Traceline and the Salvation Army and started...

"My name is Tom and I might be your son" (July 30, 2005) A little over a month ago I got a letter from Traceline saying that they thought they'd found my father. At the time I was in San Francisco attending a one-day workshop presented by Cal about Flickr and running around...

The letter from Traceline... (June 27, 2005) I'm back in London and after several hours of pottering around, I finally get the nerve to open the letter on my doorstep. I already knew the content of the letter, but nonetheless I've been circling it since lunch-time. Most...

Three phone calls that form a loop... (June 21, 2005) So I'm standing in the bar after Cal's awesome event yesterday and my phone tells me that I have a voice mail. I find somewhere relatively quiet and try and listen to it - it's the people from Traceline ringing...

A month has passed with no news... (June 20, 2005) Almost exactly a month ago today I sent off a form to an organisation called Traceline to ask them to help me find my father. Three days later I wrote a little post about my uncertainty about what would happen...

In which time passes too quick, too slow... (May 21, 2005) So it's been four days since I had the conversations with the people at the various finding-family agencies. It's been three days since I filled in the Traceline form and sent it off. I think it's only been two days...

A brief aside about filling in forms... (May 18, 2005) A weirdly disorienting couple of days all things considered and some of my fuses appear unusually short and fizzy as a result. This morning I filled in the form from Traceline and sent it off, filling the A4 sheet with...

Another step in finding my father? (May 17, 2005) So my long protracted semi-attempt to work up the courage to find my father has moved on one more tiny little step step with a couple of nerve-wracking and unsettling conversations with (1) the Salvation Army and (2) Traceline. The...

On writing to my father? (January 9, 2005) I'm still trying to get the Apple piece together into some kind of useful form which of course means that my mind keeps wandering and I keep writing other stuff instead. In a way, I'm quite enjoying it. Somehow it...

Here be monsters? (August 16, 2003) A selection of weird "it's been in the back of my head for a while now" posts about trying to find my biological father: Looking for Tom Coates (Jan 2002), On searching for 'father' (Nov 2001), Ring random people with...

On searching for 'father'... (November 6, 2001) Someone's been searching for 'father' on plasticbag.org using the Atomz powered search box (down the bottom of the page). Now normally this wouldn't be an issue, but of course since I haven't seen or heard of my father since I...

Why hasn't he looked for me? (September 10, 2001) You know what weirds me out? My father was a computer programmer for ICL in the early 70s. I know that much. So while he'd be over sixty now, if he's still alive, I doubt that he's completely computer illiterate....

Ringing random people with my father's name... (September 10, 2001) This evening, for ... well, I don't really know why ... I decided to ring a few numbers in the London area for people called Thomas John Coates. I rang up four or five, said I was looking for a...

Pictures of my father... (January 15, 2001) A while ago I recounted the story of the day before Christmas Eve, when my mother suddenly presented me with a picture of my father. I hadn't seen him, or (to my knowledge) a picture of him since I was...

Scanning in pictures... (December 27, 2000) For those who have expressed an interest, I'd just like to reassure you that I will indeed be scanning the picture of my bearded father for popular consumption as soon as I am back in London....

The first photo of my father... (December 25, 2000) So what will this Christmas be remembered for in my mind? It won't be the contribution towards the DVD player from my family, it won't be all my stepfather's family coming around for Christmas lunch. It will be remembered by...