My turmoil hosting waif babies show, by adopted star Nicky
NICKY Campbell has admitted he felt emotional when filming his latest TV show about babies abandoned at birth because he was adopted at four days old.
The broadcaster, who has traced his birth parents’ roots to Ireland, and the IRA, said he has suffered a sense of rejection throughout his life.
In the ITV special Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace, to be shown next Monday, he follows the stories of people left with no history or identity due to being abandoned as infants.
He said: “I understand, no matter how happy your adoption is, that nagging sense of rejection that many adopted people get.
Difficult
“I think it’s important to bring those feelings to it and it’s not a conscious decision to bring them or not, I think it just happens.
“It’s really difficult because we get wrapped up in the emotions. You get to know somebody and you kind of go with them on it. I’ve had my moments.”
Campbell, adopted soon after birth in Edinburgh in 1961, said he had “moments” of emotion in the show but tried not to reveal them on screen.
He presents the 90-minute documentary with Davina McCall. With experts, they help foundlings unlock the secrets of their past using DNA technology and detective work.
Campbell said the details passed on to his adoptive family – his adoptive mother was a social worker and adoptive father a map publisher – were more than the “void” most foundlings face trying to find information about their origins.
The 57-year-old discovered his mother was a Protestant from Dublin and his father had family links to the IRA.
He said: “With my adoption, I had some scant details and my parents were very forthcoming and said, if I ever wanted to know more, they would tell me as much as they could and they would help me in any tracing process.
“I knew the bare bones of it and that’s so much more than any foundling would ever have any chance of doing.
“I think it’s something they’ve lived with since age nought. I can’t imagine what that’s like.
“I try and take my own feelings and compare them and it’s difficult, it’s completely different.”
● ITV’s Long Lost Family: Born Without A Trace is on February 25 at 9pm.