Finding my dad, and myself — unravelling a family's secret

Lindsey Fidler’s quest to find her biological father started with jazz and an American Air Force Base. It ended with a trip to the U.S. through a disastrous free flights promotion run by the British division of Hoover Vacuums.

Sociologist Lindsey Fidler’s parents met and married in the 1960s in East Anglia, United Kingdom.

They would go to jazz clubs and socialise with the men from the American Air Force base nearby.

Lindsey’s father was known as The Typewriter King because he could fix any typewriter in the area.

He had contracts to repair machines on the nearby base, and even in London, where he was responsible for some of the Royal typewriters.

This was the world Lindsey knew — the one she was born into. 

However, she was always separated from it somehow.

Adults behaved strangely around her, and she felt she didn’t fit in.

She was 22 when her parents sat her down and told her why.

This episode of Conversations touches on biological fathers, family secrets, secrets we keep, epic life stories, belonging, identity, race, infidelity, siblings, affairs, being mixed race, blended families, biological parents, step parents, sociology, finding dad, personal stories, origin stories, typewriters, jazz, U.S. military, motherhood and self.