Father figures

LONG LOST FAMILY

STV, 9pm THERE’S a first for the team this week as a biological dad searches for his lost son.

Andy McNicol lives in Walsall, Staffordshire, with Hazel, his wife of 45 years.

The couple have devoted their lives to fostering children.

But Andy has lived with heartache for all that time – he was forced to break contact with his biological son just after his birth.

Andy had been in a relationship with John’s mother in the 70s. She found out she was pregnant and, as he was going through a divorce and wasn’t able to marry her, her family forced her to cut off all contact with him.

Andy went to visit John in hospital the day he was born but was not allowed to hold him – he wasn’t even allowed in the ward.

He tears up as he remembers seeing his son from behind glass but not being allowed any contact. And he was devastated when the family refused to put his name on John’s birth certificate.

But Andy has never given up hope and has searched for decades to find his beloved boy.

So when Davina McCall comes to tell him that John has been found, there won’t be a dry eye in the house as Andy’s relief and emotion comes pouring out.

The other case is Mary Davies, a woman who is looking for her birth mother Bernadette.

Mary was adopted at six weeks old but when, a few months later, doctors realised she was deaf, her adoptive parents decided they could not cope.

She was sent back, before eventually being fostered in a happy home from the age of seven.

But she has never given up trying to find Bernie and her biological family.