17.03.03
My
birth mother was too scared to meet me - David Dickinson on the
heartache of adoption
Bargain
Hunt presenter David Dickinson tells this week's Radio Times that
he never got to meet his real mother, is about to sign a lucrative
contract with a suntan oil manufacturer, and claims even toddlers
recognise him in the street.
"Mr.
Big Head", as his wife Lorne calls him, says he was about 12
years old when he found out that he was adopted. "I found out
by accident - either somebody told me or I found the papers, I can't
remember exactly how it happened - but even before that I always
felts slightly different to other boys," he says. "When
I was in my late 20s, I contacted my birth mother (Eugenie), but
by that time she was married and had another son and she was too
apprehensive to meet me. That's how it went on for 20 years, and
I never actually got to meet her, but I did get to know my half-brother,
and the first time we met, he said seeing me was like seeing Mum
in men's clothes.
Dickinson,
who is 61, also confesses to Radio Times that his biggest natural
asset - his much talked about tan - is inherited from an Armenian
grandfather. "I'm in the middle of negotiating an advertising
deal with one of the biggest suntan oil manufacturers in the world,"
he confides. "So the tan much joked about by Terry Wogan -
all that stuff about me being dipped in tea and being the love child
of Peter Stringfellow and a mahogany hat stand - is now paying dividends.
Big dividends Terry."
As
if being invited to address the Oxford union this year and announcing
upcoming advertising deals with a low cost airline and spectacle
manufacturer aren't enough, Dickinson says he loves the attention
he receives from the public. "Even toddlers will point and
say, 'That's him! That's him!'" he proudly exclaims.
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