Tommy Riddle's birth (was Re: No Sex, Please, We're British)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 83792

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "quigonginger" 
<quigonginger at y...> wrote:

Geoff wrote:
> How did he manage to trace his father in a time when information 
> about 
> > true parents was usually held secret? 
> 

Ginger:
> Um, perhaps by his name?  And the story that went with it?
> Not meaning to be saucy, but that did hit me right away ;)
> 

Geoff again:
I don't know whether you're in the UK or not, but certainly in the 
case of adoptions and possibly orphanage situations (look at Oliver 
Twist for example), the details of parents are withheld. My wife was 
adopted and we spent a lot of time round about 1980 trying to trace 
her real mother and we were for ever running up blind alleys. In the 
end, we found her more by luck than by judgement. Since then, 
legislation has been introduced which does allow an adoptee to find 
these details out. My point is that often, children from an orphanage 
might be adopted or fostered and thus this information would be kept 
under wraps. Going back on one or two of the coat hooks which I hung 
up and which have been used, someone raised the point about what 
happened to Tom Riddle after his birth. Did he stay in the orphanage 
(I implied this in my post without realising it at the time) or was 
he sent out to a family?

Further question - is there any significance that he seems to lay the 
blame completely on his father?

Geoff