Britain, 1942. It's just before Christmas and the country is in the midst of war.

In London, a baby boy just a few weeks old

is abandoned near the river Thames.

I'm holding here an extract from the daily mirror

on Monday the 21st of December, 1942.

And it says a blue-eyed boy, four weeks old, wrapped in a bright blue jacket.

Part of a woman's costume has been found abandoned on Victoria Embankment.

He is now in the Chelsea Institution.

Well that baby boy was me.

That's Tony May, the person at the center of this story.

He has spent his whole life wondering where he came from.

Most of us take the knowledge of who our birth parents are for granted. But for Tony, it was a complete blank. His papers labeled him a foundling. A Victorian word used to describe a child left by its parents and found by strangers.

What a thing to do is to leave a baby on Victoria Bankment with all these people going up and down. You run the risk, don't you know?

Bright blue costume. I've been spotted, don't you?

I just, it mystifies me as to why this spot was chosen.

Just a few years ago, Tony desperately wanted to know

who had left him and why.

But he had no leads to go on. Now, thanks to the advances in DNA

technology, Tony has discovered more than he ever dreamt possible. But this sort of

journey is not without its risks as there is no telling what secrets you

will uncover.

This is Embankment Baby from the BBC World Service. I'm Claire Bates and I'll be sharing Tony's story

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