The ad simply read: "Wanted, home for baby boy, age one month: complete surrender."

This article details the reunion between a popular British author, Ian McEwan, and his brother. Dave Sharp, the brother of author McEwan was relinquished due to a war-time affair. The article mentions that Rose, the mother was desperate to get rid of the baby as her husband was coming home from the war on leave. Rose gave her baby to a family that answered the above ad in the newspaper. Two children were later born to Rose and her husband.

Three years later, her husband died during the D-Day landings in World War II. Shortly thereafter, Rose eventually married the birth father of the child that she had relinquished. They had a second son, the award winning author,Ian McEwan. Are you still following this story? It does get complicated. Many adoption stories are fairly complex.

Although Sharp found out that he was adopted when he was 14 years old, he did not search until he was in his fifties. When Sharp asked his adoptive father for information about his birth family, all he would say was that, "We got you out of a newspaper." Sharp wrote to the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service and they located his half-brother and half-sister. He found out about his full brother, author McIwan with the help of an aunt. When he was in his sixties, he discovered that he was born as a result of a wartime affair.

Adoptee Sharp was a bricklayer when he met his author brother McEwan. He was not familiar with his brother's literary success until a stroll down the street when autograph seekers approached his brother. Sharp's birth parents (and McIwan's parents)had died by the time Sharp and McIwan met.

Mr. Sharp, with the help of a ghost writer, has now written a book of his own called "Complete Surrender."