NO one found it harder to watch Philomena - the story of a 19-year-old Catholic girl who had her baby brutally taken and sold from her by nuns - than the woman whose tragic life it was based on.
Philomena Lee, now 85, from Limerick, Ireland, was the inspiration behind the Oscar-nominated blockbuster - after she was forcibly separated from her son, Anthony, in an Irish convent in 1952.
Brutal nuns took the illegitimate baby from her and sold him to an American family for £2000 while she was slaving away in the convent laundry.
Ahead of the film being shown on BBC this weekend, Sun Online looks back at the incredible and heartbreaking true story.
A savage contract which tore them apart
Philomena was sent to Sean Ross Abbey convent in 1952 after falling pregnant to a local boy at a carnival.
Noticing her bulging belly, her aunt realised that she was pregnant and told her father who kicked her out.
Ireland in the 1950s was devoutly Catholic, and children born to unmarried mothers like Philomena were labelled "illegitimate"- and the women were often forced to give the child up for adoption.
While at the convent, Philomena was made to sign a contract which said that once born, her baby could be sold by the Catholic Church to a family looking to adopt.
Feeling she had no other option, she signed it, but told herself it might never happen.
After giving birth to Anthony in the convent, the 19-year-old spent eight weeks nursing before starting work in the laundry and doing the washing for the convent.
Every evening she was allowed to go and see Anthony, “cuddle him and sing Irish songs to him and teach him little rhymes”.
However, their happy life together at the convent would not last.
Ripped from his mother while she worked
When Anthony was three, an American woman came looking for a little girl at the convent.
She was shown Mary, the daughter of Philomena's best friend, Kathleen.
But, Mary and Anthony were inseparable and the American decided to take them both back to Missouri - despite already having three sons.
One week before Christmas, while working in the laundry, a nun came rushing in to the room telling Philomena to come quick as someone was taking her baby.
Despite running as fast as she could to save Anthony, it was too late.
The heartbroken mum describes seeing “him in a big black car, with his little face looking out the window, wondering where I was."
It was the last time she ever saw him.
'The grief made me crazy'
Philomena described herself as "absolutely heartbroken" after Anthony was adopted, admitting that she cried every night.
Two weeks after Anthony had been adopted, Philomena was thrown out of the home.
Investigative journalist Martin Sixsmith estimated that the family who adopted Anthony and Mary would have paid the convent in the region of £2,000, a huge sum in 1955, equivalent to the value of just over £18,000 today.
After having been forced to sell her baby, she was now nothing more than a burden on the convent.
She tells how her grief “nearly made me crazy”, but she knew she had to get on with creating a life for herself, having nowhere to go.
A dark, shameful secret
Philomena travelled to England and worked in a boys' school for two years where she cut all ties with her Catholic faith.
Her heartbreak over losing Anthony had forced her to rethink her devotion to the religion and she stopped going to confession and communion.
At 23 she decided that she wanted to make a career for herself and moved to St. Albans in Hertfordshire, where she worked at a psychiatric hospital for 30 years.
She said: “On seeing the awful conditions at the hospital and seeing people’s sorrows, I put my own to the back of my head and started helping other people”.
While working in the hospital she met her husband and had daughter, Jane.
Philomena kept the truth about her past a secret from her family for 50 years as she was too “ashamed” and worried about their reaction to tell them.
She revealed the truth about Anthony at Christmas in 2003 - telling Jane and her family that she was forced into selling her baby and that she desperately wanted to find him.
Jane took it upon herself to find out what happened to her half-brother and asked journalist Martin Sixsmith to help investigate what happened to Anthony after being separated from his mother.
Within two weeks of being approached, Martin had managed to find information about Michael that would both delight and shatter Philomena and her family’s world.
He told them that he American woman who adopted Anthony was Marge Hess, and that she had taken Anthony back to St. Louis in Missouri and renamed him Michael Hess.
Michael turned out to be chief attorney for The White House in the Reagan and Bush administrations.
But Philomena was about to receive the news that would shatter her heart.
Conned by the Church
Philomena phoned her old convent up, convinced that after all the years of searching she had finally found her son -and she hoped they could give her more information about his adopted parents.
It was then that she was told over the phone by a young nun that Michael had sadly died eight years earlier from AIDS, aged just 43.
So this pic popped up on my FB news feed tonight and not sure why - maybe I posted it back in the day- but I just love this photo of two of the strongest and most beautiful ladies I could ever want to meet and know in my life #philomena @finty_williams - love my mum! Xx pic.twitter.com/bULFlhWfwk
— Philomena Lee & Jane (@LibbertonJane) December 26, 2018She was the told that when Anthony had grown up, he went to search for his birth mother in Ireland on three separate occasions.
The nuns of Sean Ross Abbey, the convent where Anthony was born and sold for adoption, lied to and deceived him on his travels to the country on his search for her, telling him Philomena had abandoned him when he was two weeks old.
The young nun said that he had sent his ashes back to the convent so that if Philomena tried to track him down, she would, at last, be able to find him.
Campaigning for justice
Since Philomena discovered the truth about what happened to the son that she was forced to give up, she has dedicated her life to raising awareness about adoptions law.
“In Ireland they’re not bound to tell people [information] looking for their real family," she said.
"They have to in England when they come to 18 but in Ireland they won’t tell you and keep it secret from you, so I think this is bringing it out into the fore”.
She even visited the Vatican with Steve Coogan and Jane to speak with with Pope Francis.
It is estimated that there were 2,200 American adoptions from convents in Ireland in the 1950s.
The dedicated mum and sister have started The Philomena Project with the ultimate goal of getting adoption legislation changed so that people in a similar situation to Philomena and Anthony won’t face the same heartbreak in trying to find each other.
Philomena will be aired on Saturday on BBC 2 at 9pm
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