Terry Wiles

Terrence Wiles, known as Terry, was born on 12 January 1962 and became one of the most recognisable thalidomide babies in the UK. He gained international fame from the Emmy-winning television drama On Giant's Shoulders and the bestselling book that inspired it.

Early life

He was born Andrew Maulle in Peterborough, England. His mother, a 17-year-old prostitute, and his father, an African-American visitor, were not together. During pregnancy, his mother took thalidomide for morning sickness, which caused his severe physical disabilities at birth. Unable to cope and believing he would not survive, she left him at the hospital, and he was placed in care.

In October 1967, at Chailey Hospital in Sussex, he met Hazel Brooker (1931–2013) and Leonard George Wiles (1911–1995). Despite opposition from his birth mother and Social Services, they adopted him. As part of his new start, he changed his name to Terrence Wiles.

Len Wiles, a technically minded man who had helped design military equipment during World War II, built a series of 'Supercars' for Terry based on a forklift truck. These allowed Terry to increase his height and move freely for the first time.

At his secondary school, Ernulf Community College in St. Neots, Terry suffered bullying and abuse, including an incident where students put him in a holdall and dragged him around a room. This led to a nervous breakdown, and he left to study at a polytechnic. In the early 1980s, he attended California State University at Fullerton.

On Giant's Shoulders

At age 17, Wiles played himself in the 1979 BBC Play of the Week drama On Giant's Shoulders. Bryan Pringle played Leonard Wiles, and Judi Dench, nominated for a BAFTA, played Hazel Wiles. Anthony Simmons directed. The drama was based on the 1976 book by Marjorie Wallace and Michael Robson.

Wiles had never acted before. Because his voice had broken, it was dubbed by a child actor after filming so he could appear as himself from age 9 to 12. The drama won an Emmy in 1980. After its US broadcast, Wiles appeared on Good Morning America and The Mike Douglas Show.

Recent years

After receiving financial compensation for his birth defects, Wiles and his adoptive parents moved to New Zealand. In 1986, at a conference for disabled children, he met Robyn (born 1960), a married nurse. She left her husband in June 1988 to be with him.

Both families opposed the relationship; Wiles' parents believed Robyn was interested only in his compensation money from the thalidomide manufacturer Distillers Company. Despite this, the couple married on 13 October 1990 at their two-bedroom villa in Hamilton, New Zealand, with 25 guests. Hazel did not attend, but Len did.

After the wedding, Len and Hazel cut off all contact and returned to England in 1993. Terry learned of his adoptive father's death in 1995 through the Thalidomide Society. He never heard from Hazel again; she died in Cambridgeshire in 2013.

Terry and his wife still live in New Zealand, where he counsels others with disabilities. In 1997, Channel 4 filmed a documentary about them called Fight For Love, which covered how they met and the opposition they faced from their families and society.