Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019 Page 15
QQQ
I feared the breast
cancer that killed
mum – then found
out I was IVF baby
I say, chaps, beards are in!
RAF gets the hipster look
THE trendy bearded look took
off for real yesterday after the
RAF allowed its servicemen to
adopt the hipster style.
Previously, the best airmen
and crews could hope for was a
smartly trimmed moustache.
But the Royal Air Force has had
to keep up with the times, and
beards will be permitted from
next month.
However, there is no danger of
pilots being allowed to take to
the air sporting anything too
bushy. Instead, beards must be‘neatly trimmed’. The move
brings the RAF into line with the
Royal Navy, although beards
remain off limits in the Army.
An insider told The Sun On Sun-
day: ‘It’s all about moving with
the times. But... we won’t be
having unkempt beards or
wacky designs. Standards are
not slipping.’
An RAF spokesman said the
new policy would ‘help broaden
the recruitment pool’.Grouse shoots blasted by
Labour on Glorious 12th
Labour will today demand a
review into grouse shooting as
the four-month season begins
today on the ‘Glorious Twelfth’.
Sue Hayman, the party’s envi-
ronment spokesman, said that if
boris Johnson fails to investigate
the sport, then a future Labour
government would.
The proposed review would con-
sider alternatives to grouse shoot-
ing, including simulated shooting
and wildlife tourism.
It would also examine the eco-
nomic and environmental impacts
of the practice. Mrs Hayman said:
‘The costs of grouse shooting onour environment and wildlife need
to be to properly weighed up
against the benefit of landowners
profiting from shooting parties.
‘For too long, the Tories have
bent the knee to landowners and
it’s our environment and our peo-
ple who pay the price.’
Grouse moors cover 550,
acres of the uK. Earlier this year,
as happens annually, much of that
land was drained and dried out to
prepare it for the Glorious Twelfth- the start of the red grouse hunt-
ing season. Labour says this
destroys huge swathes of plant
life and kills many animals.
By James Tozerthough I wasn’t sure of half of myself.
‘That feeling lasted for four years,
but for a long time I tried to push that
curiosity away as much as possible
and just get on with life.
‘It was quite a long time before I
was ready to reach out, but I’m really
glad I did – we have stayed in contact
ever since.
‘When you go into something like
this, you have no idea what to expect,
and even though I felt like I was fully
ready before the meeting and had
seen pictures of her, it was still quite a
shock to come face to face with some-
one that looks just like you and even
has similar mannerisms.
‘It’s a very complex, pretty weird sit-
uation but I do think it’s put my mind
at rest a bit because it’s answered so
many questions I had.
‘I feel like there’s a part of myself
that I know much better than I
did before.’
To add to her shock Miss ranford,
who studies European culture and
thought at university College London,
found out she had a half-brother who
was also conceived by angie’s egg
donation, at the bristol Fertility Clinic.
She made the discovery while incontact with the HFEa. Miss ranford
has no details about the identity of
her half-brother – only that he was
born in 1996 – but is desperate to
track him down.
after meeting her biological mother,
she found out she has another two
half-siblings, who angie conceived
naturally. Miss ranford said: ‘It must
have been really strange for her, to
just be going about her day and theneggs – she didn’t even know if it had
been successful until then.’
Miss ranford, who did not provide
her parents’ names, added: ‘It’s so
strange to know that I’m related to
someone who could realistically be any-
where in the world, in any situation.
‘There are so many situations that
could arise. He could know and not be
bothered about finding out the iden-
tity of the egg donor, or he might actu-
ally want to get in touch.
‘I’d love to meet him as I don’t know
anybody in the same situation as me,
and it would be great to have some-
one to speak to who understands
exactly what it’s like.’
Miss ranford describes her
relationship with angie, whose
surname has not been disclosed,
as ‘like you’d have with an aunt’
and says they meet once a
month. ‘Everything has
worked out better than I
thought it might,’ she told
the website refinery29.
‘It’s a big sense of relief to
have angie in my life, and
nice to have the missing half
of my identity confirmed.’aFTEr losing her mother to breast
cancer, robyn ranford was anxious
to know if she too was at risk of devel-
oping the disease.
but when she spoke to her father, he
revealed that her worries were unfounded- as the woman she had called ‘mum’ all
her life wasn’t her biological mother.
Instead, Miss ranford, who was 16 when she
learned the life-changing news, was conceived
by IVF using an egg donor.
The revelation led the postgraduate student,
now 22, on a journey to meeting her biological
mother – and discovering she had a half-
brother conceived in the same way.
She waited four years before contacting the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology author-
ity (HFEa), which holds records on the iden-
tity of donors. a law change in 2005 means
some donors can consent to allowing their
name and contact details to be passed on.
Miss ranford, from London, emailed her bio-
logical mother angie, a blood donation nurse,
and the pair finally met last year.
‘It was an incredibly complex thing to deal
with’, Miss ranford said. ‘I was processing the
loss of my mum and also suddenly felt as
By Xantha Leatham‘It’s a big sense
of relief’
suddenly get this email from someone
who is essentially her biological
daughter – someone she didn’t even
know really existed.
‘She has two children of her own who
are older than me. Weirdly, they’re
born on the 6th and 7th May and I’m
born on the 8th.
‘She originally donated her eggs
anonymously after seeing a newspa-
per advert.
‘angie was open to the idea of find-
ing out what had happened to her Shock: Robyn Ranford was 16 when her mother diedSo close: Robyn with the woman she had always called ‘mum’Hirsute: Moustaches were already
permitted – as this airman shows