The question at the centre of a new psychological drama would strike fear into the heart of any parent: what do you do if you discover your child is not yours?

The taut ITV thriller, Playing Nice, which is set against the rugged Cornish coastline and stars Happy Valley actor James Norton and Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay, charts the emotional turmoil of two families who find out that their toddler sons had been swapped at birth.

The case featured in the drama that airs next Sunday is fictional, but mistakes on busy maternity units can, and do, happen - and for the families involved they cause lasting and unimaginable heartache.

One appalling error, which emerged just last month, involved two babies switched after being born within hours of each other in a West Midlands hospital.

For 55 years the girls had been brought up in the wrong families until the truth was revealed when one of them took a DNA test.

Today, both families - who have not been named - are still piecing together their shattered lives and, for the two women, their very identities.

In another case, in November 1992, Carla Bursey and Gemma Coyle were swapped at Southampton's Princess Anne Hospital. Thankfully the error was spotted within a fortnight and the babies restored to their rightful families. But not all mistakes can be rectified so quickly - and the repercussions can last a lifetime.

In 1936, midwives in a Nottingham nursing home caring for two women, Margaret Wheeler and Blanche Rylatt, gave them the wrong daughters to take home.




In 1936, midwives in a Nottingham nursing home caring for two women, Margaret Wheeler, centre, and Blanche Rylatt, second from right, gave them the wrong daughters. Margaret took home Valerie, right, while Blanche was given Peggy, left

It took 18 years for the truth about the girls, Peggy and Valerie, to come out, and while both have since died, their own daughters have now spoken for the first time, describing how the emotional shockwaves of that innocent mistake left an indelible mark on their families.

Jayne Cruickshank-Magistris, who is Valerie's daughter, says: 'This isn't something that resolves itself - it's with you for your entire life, and beyond. Even though it was my mother who went through the experience, it affects me, even today.'

The tragedy is that Margaret knew 'straight away' that the infant she had been given, who she called Valerie, was not hers - but no one, including midwives and her own husband, Charles, believed her.

For her part, Blanche unwittingly took home a newborn she named Peggy, and brought her up as her own with her husband Fred.

Margaret and Blanche, who had shared a room in the nursing home, agreed to stay in touch and became fond of each other, regularly corresponding by letter.

But undaunted in her view she had the wrong baby, Margaret, who had brown eyes, told blue-eyed Blanche: 'If your baby's eyes turn out to be brown, she's mine.' And that was how it turned out. On the girls' first birthday, Blanche sent her friend a letter in which she revealed that Peggy's eyes had turned brown.

For years Margaret tried to reclaim Peggy, occasionally visiting Blanche and Fred so she could see the daughter that she felt in her heart was hers.

At the time, of course, there was no way of proving that the mistake had happened, and, in any case, Fred refused to entertain the idea that the little girl he was bringing up was not his own. By the time the truth came out, the damage had been done. And while the families stayed close, right until Valerie and Peggy died, the legacy of the mistake endures.

Valerie's daughter Jayne, 52, reveals that her mother was treated 'differently' from her four siblings, such was Margaret's fixation with getting her real daughter Peggy back.




Margaret and Blanche, who had shared a room in the nursing home, agreed to stay in touch and regularly corresponded by letter. Pictured, Margaret and Valerie in the late 1930s





Blanche unwittingly took home a newborn she named Peggy, both pictured, and brought her up as her own with her husband Fred

At one point Valerie confronted her 'mother', Margaret, and suggested that should there be a house fire, she would 'save the others before you saved me'.

'I think a lot of kids feel injustice, that one sibling is favoured over the others,' Jayne says. 'But in Mummy's case, she felt it in a much stronger way.'

It is hard to comprehend treating a child this way, but Margaret was in an impossible situation.

In an interview 40 years ago, Margaret described walking into Blanche and Fred Rylatt's living room after the girls' first birthday and knowing Peggy was her real daughter. 'There she was, sitting on the hearth rug, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was my child: she was one of us,' she said.

In her desperation, Margaret, a prolific letter-writer, sought advice from playwright George Bernard Shaw. During a lengthy correspondence, he told her: 'They are not packets of sweets to be labelled with certain addresses and delivered there by errand boy.'

Margaret took on board his blunt advice and agreed to leave the girls where they were. But that did not mean she could hide her feelings.

As Valerie once said: 'Margaret sometimes said she wished she'd never set eyes on me, or that she wished I'd never been born. She didn't say that to her other kids.

'As a young child I wanted a new mother - I wanted to be adopted by someone else.'

One summer she was even sent to spend several weeks with Blanche and Fred.



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Jayne, who works in Geneva as a conference interpreter and is married with four children, says her mother felt she had been sent away so Margaret 'could focus on her real children and not have this additional child in the family'.

'Probably Grandma Wheeler [Margaret] was trying to get the Rylatts [Blanche and Fred] to spend time with her, hoping something would click. But the Rylatts were in denial.'

Meanwhile, Peggy had also felt out of place growing up with the Rylatts - at 5ft 8in, and with size 8 feet at the age of 14, she towered over the petite 5ft 3in Blanche.

In her case, she was never made to feel unwelcome.

But it was Peggy - not Valerie - who was first told of the mistake when she became engaged, aged 18. Margaret felt she should know her true identity before she got married, and chose to break the news to her while Blanche and Fred were on holiday.

'Margaret seized the opportunity when they were out of town so there was no risk they'd step in and stop her,' says Jayne.

Peggy later said the revelation turned everything 'upside down', but added: 'There was no point in resenting what had happened 18 years earlier. It was a mistake. It couldn't be rectified. I felt consoled that Margaret had fought so hard to get me back, though.'

Today, Peggy's daughter, Madeleine Clark, 59, who lives in Hampshire, says: 'Mum said that being told meant everything just fell into place - all the things she'd been thinking about growing up, the not-quite fitting in. Suddenly it went click, click, click and she knew why.

'She found it hard to accept the Wheelers were her parents, but she was so like them.

'Physically she was like Charles, but her voice and her artistic side was very much Margaret - and the fiery temperament too.'

Margaret and Charles attended Peggy's wedding, but it was Fred - who had raised her as his own - who walked her down the aisle.

Valerie, however, remained in the dark for another couple of years - a betrayal that affected her deeply - because Margaret didn't want to 'upset her too much', says Jayne.





Peggy and Valerie's children say that the outcome was ultimately a happy one, in the sense that the two families came together. Pictured from left to right are Margaret, Peggy and Valerie

It was only when Valerie found some papers in the house, labelled 'The Valerie/Peggy Affair', that she began to ask some questions.

Jayne recalls: 'It was a traumatic thing, especially for Mummy. She felt as though she had been rejected by Margaret and had also been rejected all those years by the Rylatts, who hadn't wanted to acknowledge that she was their daughter.

'She felt she was nobody's daughter, and that took her a while to come to terms with.

'But the Rylatts welcomed her. She spent some months living with them in her early 20s and felt at home immediately.'

Both Jayne and Peggy's daughter Madeleine say that the outcome was ultimately a happy one, in the sense that the two families came together.

Peggy and Valerie had a joint 21st birthday celebration, and both families attended the Wheelers' 50th wedding anniversary party in 1986, shortly before the extraordinary story hit the headlines.

'We became two big families, merged into one,' Jayne says. 'The brothers and sisters Mummy grew up with always referred to her as their sister, even after the truth came out.

'And Auntie Peggy and Mummy always introduced each other to new people as sisters. Then they'd hesitate and say, "Well, you know… kind of." But that was their gut reaction - that they were sisters.'

On the surface of it, they couldn't have been more different. While Peggy, who initially worked as a tax clerk, stayed in Nottingham with husband Tom Clark, Valerie worked as a teacher and moved around from the Channel Islands to the Bahamas and Portugal.

One trait the pair did share was a conviction that history shouldn't repeat itself when it came to their own babies.

Peggy gave birth to Madeleine and her older brother Simon at home, rather than risk a stay in a labour ward. Valerie, meanwhile, having eventually settled in Andorra with her second husband, Jim Cruickshank, returned to




The new ITV thriller Playing Nice stars Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay, pictured, and charts the turmoil of two families who find out that their sons were swapped at birth

Nottingham to give birth to her children, Jayne and Adam.

'She was very nervous and insisted on the identity bracelet being prepared ahead of time and wanted it put on her baby immediately, as soon as I was born and before I was taken away,' says Jayne. 'She wanted to be absolutely sure I couldn't be mixed up.'

Jayne, whose children were born via IVF, admits to inheriting the anxiety, recalling being 'panic stricken' there would be a mix-up in the lab.

'I got so irate with one doctor because they'd sent me some reports with the wrong date on them, and it made me wonder what else they'd got wrong,' she recalls. 'I had to apologise later and explain where that had come from.'

She had triplets - two identical twin girls and a boy, who are now 12, and a younger son, now ten.

Ultimately, her mother Valerie forgave Margaret for the trauma she endured.

'I don't think Mummy ever really overcame the pain,' says Jayne. 'But she put herself in Margaret's shoes and could understand why she felt the way she did.'

And despite their 'dysfunctional family', neither Valerie nor Peggy - nor their daughters - could imagine anything different.

In a bizarre twist to the tale, a relative researching the family tree has recently discovered that the Rylatts and Wheelers actually have a shared ancestor - which means that they are, in fact, very distantly related after all.

Peggy's daughter Madeleine says: 'Any extra family is a double blessing. Mum and Valerie went through so much turmoil but they had someone else who knew how it felt, and they supported each other.

'That was so important.'


Nottingham

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