Miles Webber is a man brimming with gratitude, and why shouldn’t he be?
Life has offered Webber blessing upon blessing since 1969, when he was adopted by Alan and Sylvia Webber through the services of the UK’s oldest Jewish charity, Norwood.
Now, as chair of the organisation that gave him his adopted family and helped him find his birth family, Webber is hoping to pay back at least a fraction of the privileges he was granted.
“If Norwood hadn't been so thoughtful about the family that I was going to, then I'm not sure I would have had such a wonderful story,” he said.
Webber, who became chair of trustees at Norwood in the summer of 2023, was adopted by a Jewish couple from St John’s Wood six months after he was born. Alan and Sylvia had previously adopted a daughter several years earlier – also through Norwood – and, not long after Webber, they adopted another baby girl through the organisation, and their family was complete.
Younger sister Katie, older sister Lucinda and Milesm as children.
“We always grew up feeling immensely chosen,” Webber said. “Our parents chose very early to embrace the fact that we were adopted – it was never a secret. It was never something difficult to deal with. It was always just a wonderful added value of our family, that we were deliberately put together.”
Webber said the family home was a “hive of community”, with both parents heavily involved in Jewish organisations and the local United Synagogue.
"Every night there would be another group in the lounge, having a meeting about something,” Webber said. The result of growing up in such an environment, he added, was “always remembering that, whatever professional career I may have, the real value in what I do and the impact I may leave, if any at all, will be in the communal place.”
Miles, his adopted father, Alan, and older sister, Lucinda.
Though Webber had the opportunity to open his adoption files and discover the identities of his birth parents once he turned 18, he would go on to wait until his adopted mother Sylvia passed away in 2005 before doing so, and, by then, he had no expectations of what he might learn.
“All I knew, because we had to know for halachic reasons, was that my mother was Jewish and I was the firstborn,” Webber said. “And I knew that I was born in a place called Kettering in Northamptonshire because it was on my passport.”
Webber went to the records office where he was told that, because he was Jewish, his adoption may have been facilitated through the organisation Norwood. Despite his records having been filed before everything was digitalised, Norwood’s shrewd record-keeping allowed the office to find Webber’s file and detailed birth story – including the Norwood correspondence between Webber’s birth mother, adopted parents, and social workers – within a few weeks.
Original letter sent to Norwood social worker confirming Miles' adoption in 1969.
Thanks to the information he discovered in his file, Webber went on to establish close relationships with both of his birth parents. He discovered that his birth father, who is Irish Catholic, is a prolific celebrity photographer living in LA with a wife and two children, and his birth mother lives in South London with her husband, whom she married a year after Webber was born. They went on to have three daughters, also living in London.
Webber, along with his wife Carolyn and two daughters Tali, 27, and Jessica, 24, visit both families regularly.
“That's a kind of fairytale story that adopted kids often don't get to tell,” Webber said.
He added that for many adopted children, the search for their birth parents “often just takes you to a grave somewhere - that's fine. That's one part of closure as well. So, fairytales don't always happen, and I know I'm privileged to have it.”
Miles in the pram with older sister, Lucinda, and mother, Sylvia.
Norwood’s adoption service ceased some years ago and was handed over to the national adoption agency, Coram Adoption. Now, the organisation’s focus is on providing services for people with neurodiversity and learning disabilities, “From the non-acute side of ADHD and dyslexia and dyspraxia, all the way through to the more profound autism and the various degrees in between.”
For Webber, who also has ADHD and dyslexia, the significance of his work for Norwood is twofold.
“My inner drive is giving back to an organisation that allowed me to live the most wonderful, privileged life, and if I can do that for people with neurodiversity and neurodevelopmental challenges, well, what a privilege.”
His year as chair of Norwood has been spent in dialogue with social work professionals to restructure the organisation’s services around four intervention points: first, “an open front door” for triage; second, a family support network; third, a transition service to help neurodiverse or developmentally challenged people move from school or educational programmes to their next stage; and fourth, providing the skills and tools for adults with more profound special needs “to be empowered as equal members of our community".
Miles with his wife, Carolyn, and daughters, Tali and Jessica.
“If we want that Garden of Eden of total inclusivity and acceptance and barrier free entry so everyone can live a full, meaningful Jewish life, then we've got to change our institutions to be able to do that,” Webber said.
He added that working for Norwood has been like the “closing of a circle” and, as he spoke about the changes he is helping to implement for the organisation, he began to tear up.
It feels right, he said, working with the charity that gave him his family. And now, just as Norwood left an indelible mark on him, so too will Webber leave his mark on Norwood.
