Orphan, M.P.

In the U.S., custom decrees that freshmen Congressmen during their first months in office are better seen than heard. Neophyte British M.P.s, on the other hand, are expected to create something of a stir when they rise to make their maiden speech in Parliament. Last week 34-year-old Ron Ledger, newly elected Labor Member for Romford, devoted his maiden speech to a plea for more free nurseries. To give his argument force, he told the story of a certain renegade father and of a mother, pregnant and destitute, who was forced to abandon her three children to the care of an orphanage. "Thirteen years later," said the young Laborite, "one of the children went out into the world . . . and, indeed, is today a Member of this House." At this dramatic point, as his fellow parliamentarians pricked up their ears, Ron Ledger added: "But I have not the slightest idea where my brother, my sister, my mother, my father, or any other relative might be."

Ron Ledger's maiden speech, with his picture alongside, got big play in London newspapers. Before the week was out, Mrs. Iris Diplock, wife of an electrician near the Old Kent Road, had stepped forward to claim Ron as a brother, as had William Ledger, a baker of Tadworth, and Joan, a sister he had never known. "It's been astounding," said M.P. Ledger at week's end. "I have already discovered eight new nephews and nieces, not to mention a brother and two sisters."

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