Author Mary Garden on the brother she never knew about, rugby league star Michael James McClennan

This article was one of Herald Lifestyle’s best-read stories of 2024. Two months after her mum died, Mary Garden and her siblings discovered they had another brother, former league star Mike McClennan - who would later meet a tragic fate after sparking a major police search when he went missing from his rest home. In this edited extract from Garden’s new book My Father’s Suitcas e, she tells how her mother had lived and died with her secret.

A second cousin rang to tell me that before she met Dad, Mum had given birth to a son and placed him for adoption. The news was a bombshell. I burst into tears.



I don’t recall much about the conversation, except that she said something about Michael being very well known in New Zealand as he’d been a famous footballer. It didn’t make sense. How could Mum not have told me? I’d shared so much about my personal life with her.

I was a mother too, and she knew I’d had two abortions . I was the first of us three siblings (I have a younger sister, Anna, and an older brother, Robert) to talk to Michael. Although still reeling with shock, I rang him the next day, even though it was New Year’s Day.

It was a very long phone call, maybe a few hours long, although I spoke mostly to his wife, Martha*. I was very emotional and often wept..