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Outlook: I Didn't Tell My Mum I Was Her Child

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Phyllis Whitsell

24/12/2015 GMT

I Didn't Tell My Mum I Was Her Child

BBC World Service - Outlook, I Didn't Tell My Mum I Was Her Child

Nurse Phyllis Whitsell spent years caring for her mother, who'd given her up for adoption

As a baby Phyllis Whitsell was given up for adoption. She thought her parents had died, but years later she encountered her mother again.

Phyllis Whitsell is a nurse who faced a heart-wrenching dilemma that few of us will ever have to confront. When she was a few months old, she was sent to an orphanage, and a few years later, she was adopted. Her new family never spoke of it, and Phyllis thought that her birth parents had died of tuberculosis. But Phyllis had a strange intuition.

These are tough economic times for many in the Brazilian capital, Rio de Janeiro, and a lot of people have lost their jobs. A training school has been set up to give the unemployed extra skills to get them back to work. Specialist skills like - how to sing, dress, and care for your beard. Because this is no ordinary school - it teaches people how to be a convincing Father Christmas. Our reporter Jefferson Puff has been to meet some aspiring Santas. 

US President Barack Obama has been getting into the Christmas spirit this week, hosting a series of events to celebrate the season. And among the singers performing for him in Washington was the Atlanta Homeward Choir, a group of homeless men who take refuge in Atlanta's Central Night Shelter. Just before they jetted off to Washington for the gig of a lifetime, our reporter Amy Kiley went to meet the choir at the Catholic Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which helps run the shelter.

Saeed Taji Farouky is an award-winning documentary maker who pushes himself to extremes to get at the story. He has trained as a marathon runner in the Sahara; swum in the ice flows of the Arctic; and for his latest film, came under gunfire alongside soldiers in the Afghan national army. It's called 'Tell Spring Not To Come This Year', and won awards at this year's Berlin and Madrid film festivals. He's been telling Nicki Paxman why he made it.

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