Sixty years have passed but thalidomide’s devastating impact is still being felt...

“I said, ‘Well, where’s my baby? I want to see him,” she recalled years later.

“I just kept getting told, ‘when the doctor’s finished’.”

It was more than 15 hours later, and only after she threatened to go to scour the hospital nursery in search of her baby,

that he was brought to her bed by a nurse.

His little body swaddled tightly in covers. Margaret, with no one by her side at the birth and aged just 18, began to tenderly unwrap her baby’s coverings. As the layers of cloth peeled away, she realised the tiny sleeves on his gown were flapping.

“There weren’t any arms”, she said. “I looked at his legs and he had a club foot. And then he opened his eyes, and he only has one eye.

“I just sat and looked and started to cry.”

Hundreds of miles away at an RAF base in Germany, Margaret’s husband Bill

was called by a senior officer and handed

a brief note.

He read it three times before the news sunk in. “It said, ‘Mother and baby doing well. Baby deformed’, and that’s all it said,” he said.

It was a brutal introduction to parenthood. And, unknown to them at the time, it was one being shared by thousands of other parents across the country.

It was the early 1960s and a week’s course of medicine prescribed by her doctor to ease a bout of bronchitis had changed the young family’s lives forever.

Thalidomide, a mild sedative developed in Germany and distributed in Britain as Distaval by the Scottish-based drinks and pharmaceutical business, the Distillers Company, was widely prescribed from 1958 for coughs, colds and, tragically, specifically advertised as bringing comfort for pregnant women struggling with morning sickness.

It was eventually withdrawn from use first in Germany then, in December 1961, removed from UK shelves.

The impact on developing babies in the womb was devastating: those that did not miscarry or were not stillborn were presented to shocked parents with missing or shortened limbs. Some were deaf, blind or had suffered brain damage, and a number with internal complications died within weeks.

It’s believed some were quietly taken aside by hospital staff and left without the support they needed to help them survive.

Speaking in an interview to Dr Ruth Blue of The Thalidomide Society as part of a project to gather real-life experiences of families affected by the drug, Bill and Margaret recalled it was two years before

a doctor by chance saw their son and

raised the possibility that he might be a thalidomide baby.

“I was angry that doctors could be so stupid as to prescribe something,” said Margaret. “Then, after a while, I sat and thought about it. They prescribed it because the pharmaceutical company told, had told them it was safe.”

The couple showered their baby with love, taught him to be independent and joined a nationwide fight for compensation and an apology that would span decades.

Yet even now – six decades on – its victims are still emerging.

Earlier this year it was revealed that

10 victims of the scandal had to wait until they were in their fifties before receiving compensation because their devastated mothers had felt unable to admit they had taken the morning sickness drug.

In other cases, mothers tortured by the thought they had affected their child’s health suffered mental breakdowns. There were suicides, attempted suicides and – some were completed - and the collapse of countless marriages.

The battle for compensation from Distillers – later taken over by drinks giant Diageo – took more than a decade to resolve, inflicting a toll on families’ finances as they tried to adapt their

homes and lives to accommodate their children’s needs.

Some children endured countless surgeries, wore uncomfortable prosthetic limbs, and were sent to special schools

that often failed to provide a full education.

Thalidomide’s destructive impact is still being felt, says Deborah Jack, chief executive of The Thalidomide Trust, which was set up in 1962 to support parents and help fight for compensation ,which distributes funds to people affected by the drug after being set up in 1962.

“They are getting older and there is wear and tear on their bodies. People born with shortened arms, or no arms, use their bodies in ways they were never designed for. A lot use their feet to do things that we might use our hands for – they write with their feet, do the washing up with their feet.

“They contort their bodies in a way they’re not designed for, and a lot are in severe pain as a result. Some use their mouth as their hands, lifting things up with their teeth, and now they are losing their teeth.”

She adds: “Pain is the number one issue. For most it’s a persistent pain they live with that affects their sleep and their concentration and which means everyday tasks are exhausting.”

Some who have worked hard for years to live independent lives are now having to turn to others for help, she added.

Anxiety and depression are also increasing as their concerns grow over their future needs at the same time as support networks around them – parents, spouses, siblings and friends – begin

to dwindle.

It is widely believed as many as 100,000 babies in countries around the world were affected by the drug.

Of that number, more than 10,000

are estimated to have been born with thalidomide-related problems.

Around 85 per cent had some form of upper limb damage, from damage to hands and wrists, slightly shortened arms to having no arms at all.

Some had damage to their legs but not their arms – or had damage to both – as well damage to their ears, eyes and internal problems.

Today, fewer than 3,000 survive, including around 50 in Scotland.

According to Dr Blue, thalidomide families showed remarkable resilience and determination as they took on the might

of the drug distributors in their battle

for compensation.

“Doctors for a long time had been ringing alarm bells but it took a long time for the pieces of the jigsaw to fit together,” she said. “GPs were told to withdraw the drug, some told patients about it, and

some didn’t.

“It was a really difficult time for parents. Some had a baby that had four limbs missing but left hospital and just went home to try to learn how to live with this.

“A lot were encouraged to put their children into homes and special centres.

“Mercy killings went on”, she adds.

“The mother would be sedated so

she would not ask to see the baby.

The baby would be taken to a nursery

and it would be two or three days later

the parents would be told their child

had died.

“One woman was told not only had her baby died but had been named and buried without her knowledge in a grave with an old woman, because they didn’t know where else to put the baby.

“There was a lot of trauma.”

Sympathy for parents’ plight sparked protests against the Distillers, the drug’s distributor in the UK . However, it took

five years after its withdrawal before compensation was paid to 62 thalidomide-impaired children.

In Germany, in 1970, the drug’s developer, Chemie Grunenthal, was brought to trial charged with intent to commit bodily harm and involuntary manslaughter. The trial was halted, however, by the German government

on the grounds that it was not in the

public interest.

Following a Sunday Times campaign,

a final settlement of £20 million was

agreed for UK thalidomide cases in 1973, which gave families a one-off initial payment of £5,000 with further grants

to be paid for by Distillers’ owner,

Diageo.

Earlier this year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed a thalidomide health grant agreement, due to end in 2023, will

receive a £40m injection and remain in place for life.

Deborah adds: “You have to feel inspired by how much they have achieved. They have had to deal with this added pressure and some have achieved amazing things despite the challenges they have faced.

“We have to make sure that for the remainder of their lives they have all

the support – financial and otherwise

– that they need to live with dignity, independence and the best quality possible.”