Legitimate question

My father believed – wrongly – that I wasn’t his child. If only there had been DNA tests to reassure him

In this magazine two weeks ago, Melanie McDonagh suggested that DNA testing is tough on children whose apparent fathers turn out not to be anything of the kind. In particular, she had sympathy for the child whose TV presenter ‘father’ discovered that for years he had been paying child support for somebody else’s offspring. No doubt she has a point, but what of the children whose true fathers doubt their paternity?

For me, DNA testing would have been a blessing. My father doubted I was his child, though I didn’t know it. I just knew that he didn’t seem to care for me very much. ‘The cuckoo in the nest’ is what he called me. When I was about six, he would ask me if I knew what the phrase meant.