The art of finding long-lost families
Writer and television presenter David Lomas has become an expert in tracking down lost families - and reuniting them.
WATCHING THE tears flood down Jo Anderson’s face was a precious moment. I had just told Jo, 49, a social worker from Rangiora, that the mother she had given up all hope of ever meeting, had been found and wanted to meet her.
‘‘You haven’t have you?’’ she asked between tear bursts. ‘‘Have you really?’’ Finding Jo’s mother was one of the special searches I have been involved with while making family reunion television programmes over the last seven years.
All Jo knew of her birth mother was that her name was Margaret Elliott, that she was from Scotland and that she’d been 18 when she’d given birth while living at a boarding house in London’s Earl’s Court.
Jo hired private detectives to find her mother. They failed. So Jo, who was raised in England by loving adoptive parents, both now dead, then agreed to husband Nigel’s desire to start a new life in New Zealand.
Jo wrote to me, like thousands do each year, seeking the help of our show Lost&Found.
Her story struck a chord. In her letter she told how before leaving England she had gone to stay at the boarding house, now a hotel, just to get a feel for the birth mother she now believed she would never meet. ‘‘When I was there I just imagined her, a frightened young girl holding me as a baby knowing she was going to give me away,’’ said Jo.
The search for Margaret was intriguing and complicated. The private detectives had done all the obvious work and got nowhere. At Lost&Found we tried a different approach. As we often do, we went back in history and sought Margaret Elliot’s parents. We were looking for what we call an absolute truth. A point where we are certain the facts are right. It gives us a base for a search.
We found Margaret’s parents. Both were dead. But on the mother’s death notice we got our breakthrough. The person who reported the death was a son-inlaw, Margaret’s husband Donald Clark, from Paisley.
Checking every record we could for Donald Clark of Paisley we found him listed as a supporter of the local football team. We joined the supporters club and were able to get a number for him in London.
The phone call is the moment I find the hardest. It is when it can all go wrong, especially when you have to negotiate the possibility that the husband knows nothing of the adopted child. I was in London when I rang. Donald was frustrating. Margaret was away he said, but he was happy to answer all my questions. I told him it was personal. He said he and Margo had no secrets and that I could ask questions till he got one wrong.
So I asked about Margaret’s background, then the address in Earl’s Court. And he said: ‘‘Is this about Kim?’’ Kim was Jo’s birth name. ‘‘Margo’s been waiting so long for this call,’’ Donald told me. And so I got to talk to Margaret. And mother, like daughter, was a torrent of tears. ‘‘I can’t believe it. I thought it would never happen,’’ she cried.
The Margaret and Donald story is itself poignant. Like many young New Zealanders, they’d headed from Scotland for London for the bright lights. They’d met there, part of a group that socialised together.
When Margaret was pregnant, Donald was the friend who helped. He’d held baby Kim (Jo) and tried to help Margaret keep her baby. Later, after the adoption, they started dating, then married. Margaret sought to reclaim Kim but the adoption agency said no.
In London Margaret took me back to the boarding house. Her’s was a story of the 1970s, one of the many I have heard.
‘‘I didn’t have a job, didn’t have anywhere to stay. I couldn’t tell my parents,’’ Margaret said. ‘‘I wanted to keep her, but I couldn’t.’’ She had kept her baby for almost two months. Kim’s cot had been a drawer.
Finding and reuniting Margaret and Jo was satisfying, as is every reunion I have been involved with.
Lost&Found,