Secrets and Lemons

Lemons may make lemonade, their blossoms may smell sweet, but bite beneath their raw skins and they’re impossible to eat. Such is Barbara Docherty’s memoir, Secrets and Lemons.

“My father said I’d talk to anything, even a cornflake…” And indeed, Barbara strongly conveys her zest for living and adventure, her ability to connect with people, and talent for recognising opportunity when it knocks.

Her life has been full of ‘firsts’. First health nurse to host a radio talkback show; first to see the need for a general practice nurses manual, and write it; first to develop a programme to teach health professionals how to encourage patients to choose healthy lifestyles; first to teach society that yes, heterosexual women do marry homosexual men, often before their men really know themselves.

But, there were times when the trauma in her life was great, and unable to unravel this, she buried the anguish only for it to manifest later as post-traumatic stress.

Key among those experiences was the forced adoption of her babies – twice. Many forced-adoption birth mothers of the notorious ‘baby scoop era’ will viscerally feel the systematic dehumanisation of Barbara’s childbirth experiences and the illegal kidnapping of her infants. And for decades she persistently hounded authorities for information about her children, which fell on deaf ears. It was not until 2024 that New Zealand politicians offered brief apologies for the abuse, but, “…we still [await] a much wider acknowledgement and redress.”

This is an unfinished story... but a plethora of women who were there too, who work in healthcare services, and who care about the lives of women who are fighting to redress this history. This is a must-read book for all women, health professionals, government officials and religious leaders.