Long Lost Family

Ann Munro, 63, from Ringwood in Hampshire, gave up her son for adoption when she was 21 and her life ever since has been overshadowed by guilt and the longing to ask for his forgiveness. Louise Kendall, a 28-year-old nurse, lives in Bradford with her four-year-old son. She's hoping to meet her French father for the first time as she travels to Dijon, the city where her parents fell in love.

Sara Price-Parker, 44, decided to trace her birth mother Denise after the death of her adoptive mum, but her 25-year search ended in disappointment when she discovered her parent had emigrated to Jamaica in the 1970s. Sara is now turning to Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell as her last hope to establish contact. Pauline Wood, 77, always longed for a sibling to play with while growing up as an adopted only child. At the age of 28, she learned her birth parents later got married and had a son, but the quest to find her brother has gone on for decades to no avail.

Family man Richard Cue, 57, has always felt grateful for the love and support he received from his adoptive parents, so he wants to find his birth mother to thank her for the sacrifice she made in giving him up in 1957. Having accessed his records, however, he has been searching for almost a decade with little success. Tania Bartlett's mother Julie fell pregnant to Iranian student Ahmed Kazem in the early 1960s, but the couple drifted apart when Julie felt unable to join Ahmed to start a new life in America. Despite intermittent contact with her father in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tania has spent the past 30 years searching for him, not knowing if he is even alive. Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell bring these families back together.

This week Long Lost Family returns with the most extraordinary search we have ever undertaken. A mother looking for her daughter from whom she was separated when she was just ten days old and that baby’s father who has spent a lifetime yearning for the chance to give his daughter a hug. It’s a search that takes us from Colonial Kenya in the 1950s to the heart of the World War I battlefields in Northern France. Sixty six year old Inge Dart grew up in Kenya in the dying days of the British Empire. But growing up, she was overshadowed by her domineering mother. At the age of nineteen, when Inge became pregnant with her childhood sweetheart Jeremy, her mother intervened and sent Inge half way around the world to have her baby in secret. Banished to Surrey, Inge was taken in by a couple who looked after her until her daughter was born. In the ten days that followed, she cared for her baby, knowing time was running out. The only joyous moments were when Jeremy visited and the young couple were able to enjoy what little time they had with their daughter. The loss of her baby has haunted Inge ever since and she now craves the peace she knows will only come when she sees her daughter once more. Watch what happens when we take on Inge’s search and, in a first for Long Lost Family, take on her daughter’s search for her father Jeremy.

Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell help Sheila Thomas, who gave her daughter up for adoption in 1968, and Stephen Andrews who grew up ashamed that his mother could not keep him.

When Colin Deering left home to join the Army, his mother Nellie revealed to him and his younger sister Helen that she had given birth in 1945 and put the baby up for adoption, believing he would have a better chance in life. Shortly before her death, Nellie begged Helen to find her brother and reunite the family, and this programme aims to fulfil that dying wish. Plus, the story of Stephen Haywood, who has put his life on hold until his birth mother can be a part of it. He feels unable to celebrate important occasions without her present, and in recent years his search has become more urgent due to serious health issues.

Patricia Hart grew up in the colliery village of Moorends in South Yorkshire, where her father was a miner. Shortly after being demobbed from the Women's Royal Army Corps, she discovered she was pregnant, and with no support from her boyfriend, made the decision to give up her baby for adoption. Now, after several health scares, she fears time is running out to find her daughter. Army reservist John Farrell, from Bootle in Merseyside, was a teenager when he learnt the man he had called dad all his life was not in fact his father. At the time, anger prevented him from wanting to know more, but now, as a parent himself, his need to know his birth father has grown.

Gillian Carter from Sheffield became pregnant shortly before her 18th birthday and had hoped to keep the baby with the support of her aunt, but the arrangement fell through due to illness. Now, the 66-year-old is looking forward to a potential reunion with her son. Sandra Macdonald, 53, was given up for adoption in Edinburgh in 1960 and grew up with the feeling something was missing from her life. At the age of 15 she started searching for her birth mother, but she was met by disapproval and misinformation at every turn. Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell tell Gillian and Sandra's stories, guiding them through their emotional searches.