A so-called ‘Dustbin Baby’ found abandoned in Walthamstow 46 years ago is appealing for help to find her birth mother.

Michelle Rooney was put inside a plastic laundry bag and left outside Lavenham House in Brettenham Road, with no clues as to who her parents were.

Wrapped in a blanket, Mrs Rooney’s tiny body still had 6ins of roughly severed umbilical cord attached. 

And although she had been left in the porch of block of flats, she ended up in the dustbin area.

Mrs Rooney explained: “A tenant saw the bag on the night of November 16 1968 and thinking it was full of rags, moved it next to the dustbins.

“I was only found two days later by a woman putting out her rubbish.

“Severely dehydrated and suffering from hypothermia, I may not have survived another night in the open.

“Even if I had, the bin lorry was due and I would have ended up in the crusher.”

Mrs Rooney was taken to Whipps Cross University Hospital in Leytonstone, where she was named Joan after staff nurse Joan Crinion.

Newspapers which reported her plight at the time dubbed her the ‘Dustbin Baby’.

When her mother failed to come forward, Mrs Rooney was adopted by London policeman Les Fuller and his wife Daphne.

She said she enjoyed a happy childhood in Walton-on-Thames, but always hoped to find out who her birth mother was.

However, with no name to go on, the odds were against her.

In January this year, Mrs Rooney joined a genealogy website and took an ethnic DNA test.

Incredibly, she was matched to a first cousin also on the website which enabled her to trace her birth father, John Good, a retired London milkman who’d worked for the Co-Op Dairy in Leytonstone in the 60s and 70s.

“He had no idea I even existed, let alone that I’d been abandoned by someone he must have known,”’ Mrs Rooney said.

“It was devastating for him, but he was a lovely man and welcomed me with open arms.

“Though he didn’t know who my mum was, he did tell me about a lively divorced and separated club he had been a member of which met in The Three Blackbirds pub, in High Road, Leyton.

“Judging by my date of my birth, it’s possible I was conceived on Valentine’s Day 1967.

“Perhaps there was a party at the pub which led to a one-night stand – resulting in my secret birth and abandonment.”

Mr Good died aged 84 from cancer in July this year, just a few months after he and Mrs Rooney met.

Before his death he urged her to keep looking for her mother.

Mrs Rooney said: “Thanks to the ethnic DNA test I know she is Jewish and was of Eastern European descent.

“It is probable that she still lives in the Walthamstow area and if she reads this, I’m urging her to get in touch.

“I don’t hate her for what she did, I just want to meet her.

“She’s missed too much of my life already."

Can you help Michelle find her mum? Please email in confidence: foundling.info@btinternet.com