On a cold November morning in 1982, Margaret Burgon, a 36-year-old mother-of-three, made a solemn vow as she stood beside a grave in Northamptonshire, watching as a coffin was slowly lowered into the ground.
‘I said, “I promise you won’t be forgotten”,’ she recalls.
That heartbreakingly tiny coffin held the remains of a newborn baby, who had been murdered, then left in a plastic bag at Northampton railway station.
Despite a six-month police inquiry, she had not been identified – and neither had the woman who had given birth to her.
Margaret and her husband George, the vicar who presided over the baby’s funeral that morning, thought of her as a ‘fallen sparrow’, after a Biblical text which refers to how God mourns the loss of even the smallest thing.
The poignant mystery of how the baby came to be abandoned made headlines around the country, as police appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
Margaret Burgon and her husband George, the vicar who presided over the murdered baby’s funeral and thought of her as a ‘fallen sparrow’ because of a Biblical text which refers to how God mourns the loss of even the smallest thing
Now, more than 40 years on, Northamptonshire Police has seemingly found some answers. In June, following a cold case review (the reason for which is, as yet, unknown), it emerged that a 57-year-old woman had been arrested on suspicion of murder, relating to the death of a newborn baby.
She has been released on bail and, as of last week, eight weeks after her arrest, no further action has been taken.
She would have been 15 at the time the baby’s body was discovered.
On the surface then, this is a crime story – but it is so much more than that. It is a tale of extraordinary compassion shown by an ordinary couple who were determined that, however tragically short this baby girl’s life had been, the ‘Little Sparrow’ would leave her mark on the world.
That is why, several times a year for the past 42 years, Margaret, now 78, has tended the baby’s simple grave in an isolated part of the Northampton cemetery – and why, five years ago, she decided to erect a headstone as a permanent memorial.
On it is the message: In Loving Memory/Of An Unknown Baby Girl/Died 18th May 1982. A Fallen Sparrow Known Only To God And Loved By God.
She tells the Mail: ‘There’s going to come a time when I can’t get over to her and I wanted to have a proper headstone to commemorate her so others who come after me will be able to find her.
‘We may not ever know her name, but we wanted to mark her presence in the world.’
Margaret and George are not comfortable in the spotlight. Married for 54 years with three grown-up daughters, they met at a church in Wellingborough in 1968. George was a curate; Margaret ran a Girl Guide group.
Were it not for the events of 1982, their names would probably never be known outside their family or the congregations of George’s parishes.
‘When we married in July 1970 the headline in the local newspaper read: “Curate Marries the Guide Captain”,’ laughs Margaret.
The couple and their growing family moved first to Daventry and then, in 1975, on to St Mary’s in Far Cotton, Northamptonshire, where they remained for 23 years.
As a vicar, George presided over both joy and tragedy at this church. But little could have prepared him for the moment, eight years into his ministry, when there was a phone call from the police asking him to perform a burial service for a child with no name and no parents.
Like everyone locally, the couple were aware of the headlines about a baby girl found in a carrier bag.
She had been strangled and wrapped in a cloth, but other than that – and at a time when the science of DNA was in its infancy – there was little else to identify her.
While her death made national headlines, public interest in her identity soon ebbed as one lead after another fell away.
It was in November 1982 that George – who had been profoundly moved by the fate of the little girl – was asked if he could give her a Christian burial at Towcester Road cemetery, just a short distance from his church.
As she was deemed a ‘pauper’, she was buried not in the children’s section, but in a remote, tucked away corner of the cemetery.
As she was deemed a ‘pauper’, the baby was buried not in the children’s section, but in a remote, tucked-away corner of Towcester Road cemetery
‘It grieved us both greatly and, looking back, I think if people had been aware they would have raised money to ensure she could be buried alongside the other children,’ Margaret says now. Nonetheless, the service performed for that unknown baby was, Margaret remembers, ‘fit for royalty’.
‘George treated her with such reverence,’ she says. ‘He could have been burying a princess.’
She can recall the occasion as if it were yesterday. There were nine mourners present – Margaret and George, the undertaker, the gravedigger, three police officers and reporters from both the local newspaper and radio station.
‘She had a full service, but the only thing George couldn’t do was give her a name,’ she says, emotion still in her voice. ‘So he referred to her as the “Little Sparrow”.’
George later recalled the ‘common humanity’ of the occasion: ‘The way people responded at the time, and still do. As a society, she’s our child.’
The next morning, Margaret brought a jam jar from home for flowers, which she inserted into the fresh soil. ‘At that moment a policeman popped up from behind the hedge and demanded to know who I was. They were keeping watch on the grave to see if someone would visit who might know who the baby was,’ Margaret says.
No one ever did, and, in 1993, 11 years after the baby’s body was found, police closed the case.
For many years, Margaret brought flowers to the grave on the unknown baby’s ‘birthday’ (May 18, the day she was found), alone, or accompanied by her daughters.
‘They knew from the beginning this baby had died and they came with me to bring flowers,’ she says.
One thing, though, troubled Margaret over the years: while the funeral directors had donated a small stone vase to mark the unknown baby’s burial site, it was not going to last for ever.
When, around six years ago, she spotted it had been damaged, she realised she wanted to find something more permanent.
‘It made me realise that one day I’m going to fall off this mortal coil and I’m not going to be able to go there, so she needed a proper headstone to mark the spot where she lay,’ she says.
Margaret went to visit a local stonemason who, on hearing the story, agreed to make a headstone at no cost, inscribed with the words her husband had read at the funeral.
‘I think that if the local community had known they would have raised the money, but it was so kind of him to donate it,’ she says.
Today, Margaret is not alone in marking the baby’s presence: she has since met another local family tending a grave in the area who, on hearing of the baby’s plight, asked if they too could visit. ‘The lady asked if I minded. I said not at all, it wasn’t my grave, I just wanted to make sure she wouldn’t be forgotten.’
Sometimes Margaret arrives to find other flowers or, poignantly, tokens of affection from visiting children – from toy ponies to a brightly coloured windmill. ‘I think it’s rather lovely,’ she says.
Margaret was a 36-year-old mother-of-three when she found the remains of the newborn baby, who had been murdered and then left in a plastic bag, at Northampton railway station. At the funeral, she promised never to forget the little child
Then, in June, after 42 long years, something unexpected happened.
One morning, Margaret answered the door to find two police officers on the step. ‘Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that,’ she says.
They were from the East Midlands Serious Crime Squad and had extraordinary news. ‘They said they had reopened the case of the baby found in 1982.
‘They had been working on it for some months and were in a position to make an arrest,’ she recalls.
‘They could not tell me more than that, other than that the person in question was a 57-year-old woman, which meant she would have been 15 when the baby was born.’
Margaret admits that the news, so out of the blue, left her battling a deluge of emotions.
‘It was such a shock,’ she says. ‘But most of all I just felt terribly sad for this woman.
‘Whatever happened to that little girl, she has had to live with this knowledge for 42 years. It has been a life sentence for the mother.’
With no more information forthcoming from the police, Margaret can only wonder how the woman has been identified. She does not even know if she is local.
Did she come forward, perhaps prompted by a Facebook post Margaret made earlier this year, commemorating a visit to the grave with a simple picture? Could it be DNA?
‘One assumes they have things the baby was wearing still in evidence,’ she says. Northamptonshire Police confirmed to the Mail this week that the arrested woman remains on bail and that there were no further updates to give.
Margaret remains convinced the woman is the baby’s mother. It leaves yet more questions about this haunting story which may never be answered, although Margaret says she has not given up hope of finding out what really happened to the Little Sparrow.
‘I told the police that if it was possible, and if she wanted to, I would meet that mother and take her to her daughter’s grave,’ she says.
‘I would like her to know that her child was given love by me and by my husband and that every year I took her flowers and wished her a happy birthday on the day that we had chosen.
‘But perhaps she wants to leave things as they are.’
Had the baby survived, of course, she would now be older than Margaret was when she stood by the graveside all those years ago for that heartbreaking funeral.
‘A lot of people have asked me why I still visit,’ she says.
‘My answer is that we made a promise that she wouldn’t be forgotten. And she hasn’t been.’
