Long Lost Family

The story of a birth mother looking for the daughter she was forced to give up as a teenager, and a big sister looking for her baby brother. 

Paula Beer was 17 years old when she had her son. She was so terrified of her strict parents' reaction that she didn't tell them. It was only when she went to visit her aunt in Essex that the truth was revealed. Paula loved her son but had to make the heart-breaking decision to give him up for adoption. 57 years later, she still tearfully remembers the day she told him ‘to remember my voice, I will always love you'.

Sharon Thomas only learned that she had a younger brother when she was in her twenties. It was a family secret, even from her, that her teenage mother Margaret had a second child out of wedlock. Her parents said they couldn't support another child and Margaret made the devastating decision to give him up for adoption. Margaret died just 10 months later from leukemia. Sharon is desperate to find her brother, for her and for her late mother.

Sue Stalley was a teenager when she became pregnant by her first boyfriend. Her mother was deeply ashamed and forced her to wear a coat to conceal the pregnancy, even in the height of summer. Sue's mother would not allow her to keep the child and Sue tearfully gave him up for adoption, but she has never forgotten her eldest son and still berates herself that she could have tried harder to keep him.

Melanie Mackney had a good adoption but from her paperwork learnt that her mother had twins before her. Melanie discovers that her mother fled war-torn Yugoslavia before ending up in Australia and finally coming to England where she lived on the streets. What happened to the twins that her mother also gave up for adoption? The mystery has haunted Melanie her entire life.

This episode features two women searching for siblings - the first has been hoping to find her brother ever since learning of the enormous burden of grief her mother carried after giving him up. 

Tracey Boyle had children of her own before she learned of her brother's existence - after a stay in hospital following a breakdown, her mother finally confided in Tracey the enormous weight of grief she carried ever since her first-born son was prised from her hands at the age of 16 and placed for adoption. Tracey is determined to find him and let him know he was wanted.

In our second story, a woman who had a strange sense she had a sister out there during her own adoption finally gets confirmation of her intuition. Liz Allward was adopted as a baby, but she always had an uncanny feeling that she had a biological sister somewhere out there and has longed to meet her from the moment she found out she was right.

Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell present two more stories, beginning with 66-year-old Charlotte's search for the baby she gave up as a teenager, a quest given greater urgency by her recent cancer diagnosis. Jenna was donor-conceived and has got absolutely no idea what or who she might find, and is seeking answers to many questions including if she has any siblings out there.

Cameras focus on Mary Arbuthnot, a woman raised by beloved adoptive parents, who searches for her two separately adopted siblings. In the second story, Maggie McCauley's mother had been pregnant in 1976, and now Maggie wants to find her older sister who was given up for adoption.