A woman who was abandoned as a baby on the steps of a Bradford church has made a last-ditch national appeal for any information which could help trace her biological family.

Heidi Specter appeared on Trisha Goddard’s Channel Five show on Thursday and also wrote an open letter in a national newspaper in a last attempt to find her real mother.

The 32-year-old, of Manchester, has previously appealed through the Telegraph & Argus for any information which could lead to a reunion with her ‘real’ family.

The appeal, in February, 2007, failed to find her mother but it did lead to a meeting with Sylvia McLear, of Eccleshill, the sister of the late Derek Hall, the Bradford milkman, who found Heidi as an abandoned baby on the steps on St James’s Church in Bolton Road, Bradford, at 5.30am on Monday, April 26, 1976.

The only clues to the identity of the baby was a rattle with the name Tara on it and a note found tucked into her shawl, written by her mother, saying she was sorry but she was unmarried. It also said she had to go away for two weeks but would return for her child.

But she never did, and despite a police investigation Heidi Specter, as she was named by the couple who eventually adopted her, has never found out who her mother was.

Speaking on the television show yesterday she said: “I have been searching for 18 years for my mum or any other relatives. I don’t have a date of birth, a name, surname or anything to go off. All I have is the name Tara.”

She then went on to talk about how she thinks about her biological mum all the time.

She said: “When little things crop up or someone talks about having a baby. I have worked in a hospital and I think, have I cared for my mum?

“And you see people who have got their babies and hear stories of people giving them up – then it floods back to you. I just want some answers. I have tried everything I can to find out who I am and where I am from.”