SHE has reported from wars to Miss World and everything in between.

But now Kate Adie has turned her attention to the subject of foundlings children abandoned at birth and has written a book, Noboby's Children, chronicling some of their stories.

The more she talked, the more you were drawn into a world of family secrets which even today still affects around 40 to 50 people in Britain each year.

"These are people who cannot draw a family tree, or you cannot say to them, oh you have your grandfather's eyes,' or you have your mother's cheeks," said Kate, who is an adoptee herself.

"They are the stories that rarely make the national headlines, accept for in very exceptional circumstances, so much of my research has involved me looking at the local papers and pictures of a nurse holding a little baby and appealing to the mother to come forward.

"For years it was a taboo, people would say, we don't really talk about that,' but today's society is becoming more open than ever before."

She has spoken to people who were abandoned in telephone boxes, on hilltops with their hands bound, and even left at checkouts in supermarkets.

But, despite our modern way of looking at these cases, Kate is infuriated by the way such situations are dealt with by the authorities.

"You see these pictures in the paper, the nurse with the paper and the caption underneath will say that the police are concerned for the mother's welfare and want her to come forward," she said.

"But that is a deceit, the police have no interest in the gynaecological concerns of the mother they want to find her because under laws made in Victorian times, she could go away for five years."

Yet, despite her determination to stay on the subject, it wasn't long before conversation turned to her BBC days as foreign correspondent on what she called the taxi rank waiting to be sent on the next job.

"I was never married to the job," she said.

"You had to get back to the reality of normal life, when talking to your family, you couldn't say, we only got shelled a couple of times today' because that's not normal in Tunbridge Wells."

What's on

Today

Mug Shots at the main hall of University of Bath in Swindon 12.30pm Sir Ken Robinson at the main hall of University of Bath in Swindon 4pm Ride On at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road 7pm John Hegley at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road 9pm

Tomorrow

Mark Lawson and Julie Myerson at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road 12.30pm Ned Sherrin at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road 6pm 235 Ways To Change The World at the Old Railway Museum, Faringdon Road 7.30pm Book Club Comedy at the Arts Centre, Devizes Road 8pm