West Heath Court TV appeal

David returned to West Heath Court again today, this time accompanied by a film crew from ITV London Tonight.

Watch David's appeal from West Heath Court on London Tonight
(link disabled while ITV site is redesigned - back soon)

Returning to West Heath Court

David recently returned to the spot where he was found.

David was discovered outside a second floor flat in West Heath Court, North End Road, Golders Green, London NW11 7RG in the London Borough of Barnet at around 5pm on Thursday 15 December 1960. The telephone exchange at that time was Meadway.

David recently returned to West Heath Court and stood on the spot where he was found 50 years ago.

Did you live in West Heath Court in 1960?

Did you have a friend or relative who lived in West Heath Court in 1960?

Did you or a friend or relative work in West Heath Court in 1960, for example as a gardener, nanny, cleaner or au pair?

David would urgently like to hear from you. Please contact him at david@therainbowbaby.com.


David would also like to thank the current residents of West Heath Court who have been extremely patient and gracious towards him, a stranger from their past. To them and all the people of Golders Green David says thanks for your wit and wisdom. With your help, David is confident he will find the answers he is looking for.

Casting the net wide

David's parents could be anywhere...

David is keen to speak with media outlets throughout the UK (and around the world) so that he can let his mother know that he is searching for her. If you can help David to reach more people with his story, please contact him at david@therainbowbaby.com.

David welcomes all correspondence from the public. He reads every email he receives and if you write to him you will receive a reply.

David appeared on 'Outlook' on the BBC World Service on Tuesday 10 February 2009.

David was interviewed by veteran broadcaster Matthew Bannister.

• Listen to David on Outlook with Matthew Bannister

Daily Mail 2009

48 years later...

In February 2009, freelance journalist and author Hilary Freeman interviewed David to find out if he had ever had any success in tracing his birth parents.

This new article focussed on David's on-going search for his birth family, on how he now feels about them and what it would mean to him to have contact with them after all these years.

The article was published in the Daily Mail on Thursday 5 February 2009 under the headline:

'So who is my mother? Dumped in a stairwell at just four days old, David's poignant story was front page news in the [Daily] Mail. For 48 years, he's known nothing about the mother who abandoned him. Now he's trying to solve this haunting mystery... and he needs YOUR help.'

If you missed the article in the paper you can read it online on the Daily Mail website.

Daily Mail 1960

Front page news...

A few days after David was found, a story about him was published in the Daily Mail, a national newspaper in the UK. Even though the paper was read by millions of people and the story about David was on the front page, no-one ever came forward to claim him as their own.

David was completely unaware that the Daily Mail had tried to help him until some 30 years later. The British law that controls adopted children's access to records about themselves changed and David requested his adoption records from the local council in the hope that they might reveal some clue to his identity.

To his amazement, two vital documents were tucked inside the folder of social workers' notes. One of these was the police report filed by the WPC who rescued David. The other was this newspaper cutting. It wasn't until David paid a visit to the Newspaper Library in Colindale, London that he discovered that the cutting was from the Daily Mail and had been published as a front page story on Wednesday 21 December 1960.

The article read:

The Rainbow Baby left in hall
Do you know the Rainbow Baby? His picture was issued by Scotland Yard last night. The four-day-old boy was abandoned in a second-floor hallway at West Heath Court, North End Road, Golders Green last Thursday. He was dressed in a white candlewick shawl, lined with green, with a yellow bear embroidered on it, and a pink cardigan with a blue Fair Isle pattern. Over him had been laid a blue flannelette blanket decorated with a pink and black lamb.

Thank you

David would like to thank the following journalists, broadcasters, producers, media outlets and members of the public for helping him with his search.

Hilary Freeman & the Daily Mail; Mel Poluck & the Jewish Chronicle; Kevin Bradford and the Hendon & Finchley Times; Lucy Purdy and the Barnet Press; James Brindle, Jeremy Sallis and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire; Siobhann Tighe, Matthew Bannister & BBC World; Anne Mallon, John Toal & BBC Radio Ulster; Stephen Rhodes & BBC Radio Three Counties; James Brindle, Frances Finn & BBC Radio Nottingham; Jill Collins, Stephen Nolan & BBC Radio 5 Live; Ronnie Dungan & Toy News; Ann Taylor & Barnet Local Studies; Tegwen & Norman Curl; Liron & Jonathan Cohen, Suzy Goldberg, Kitty Ruderman, Theresa Musgrove and everyone at West Heath Court.

He would also like to thank his adoptive family for their love and support: his mum Margaret, his dad Stuart, his brother Mark, his sisters Beryl and Karen and his neice Jamie.

Finally, he would like to give special thanks to Hilary Freeman, the freelance journalist who helped him tell his story through the pages of the Daily Mail in 2009, and Tegwen Curl, the woman police officer who rescued him on 15 December 1960, whose and compassion for the little baby left in the hall meant that David was adopted by a loving family and to whom he would like to express his love and gratitude.