‘It was so hard to deal with my past’ Nicky Campbell shares his story of adoption
Known for reuniting families on ITV’S Long Lost Family, presenter Nicky Campbell, 59, shares his own story of adoption, and explains how his dogs have been such a support
I’ve always known I was adopted. I grew up in Edinburgh with my adoptive parents, Frank and Sheila, sister, Fiona, and a dog called Candy. My mum told me from the beginning about my birth mother, an Irish nurse in Dublin, who loved me but couldn’t look after me. My childhood was very happy, yet there was something missing. I remember feeling like I was an imposter in my own life.
On my 10th birthday, my family took me to a hotel in Inverness for tea. When the staff gave me a cake with candles and everyone sang Happy Birthday,
I felt so overwhelmed that I burst into tears. I didn’t feel like I deserved the celebration; I felt like I didn’t belong. It’s a sense a lot of adopted people feel, like you’re being torn in different directions.
My dog, Candy, was my best friend; even when I couldn’t articulate my
feelings, he understood. I’ve always had a connection with animals. The deep, emotional relationship you can develop with them is incredible.
UNCOVERING THE PAST
It wasn’t until 1989 that I decided to trace my birth mother. I was in a very bad place at the time, at the tail end of an unhappy first marriage. I have bipolar, but back then it was undiagnosed, so my mind was all over the place. My highs were presenting Top Of The Pops and Wheel Of Fortune, but I also had terrible, unexplained lows. I thought that finding my birth mother might be the answer to my unhappiness. I had her name, Stella, on my birth certificate, and some details from my mum, but that was it. At the time, I was doing a TV programme about private detectives and I asked one of the interviewees if he could help me trace her. He said: ‘Yeah, no problem, mate. Give me a couple of days.’ I couldn’t believe how easy he made it sound.
I was terrified when I got the call from him, and even more so when Stella agreed to meet me. I was confronting something that had been in the back of my mind for my entire life. Three weeks after we’d made contact, I was waiting in a Dublin hotel, more frightened than I’ve ever been in my life.
She was two hours late. She arrived dishevelled and apologetic, telling me she’d taken a sleeping pill and had slept through her alarm. I learned that she’d had a chaotic life with her own mental health struggles, and realised that reality clashed with the image in my head. The story of the saintly nurse was one my parents had told to make me feel secure. In fact, it turned out that my birth mother had had two babies adopted within 18 months of each other – I had a birth sister.
After our reunion, Stella began to send me letters. I didn’t read them. I was overwhelmed; it was so hard to deal with my past. Finding a birth parent shouldn’t be like making an instant coffee; you’re meant to go through a process, get advice and counselling beforehand, talk to social workers and then arrange a meeting. But I had done none of those things.
Psychologically, I couldn’t cope with the aftermath. You feel like you’re meant to bond when you meet your birth mother, but when that didn’t happen,
I felt like a failure. I was in that dark place for a long time. Meeting my sister, Esther, four years later brought a sense of relief. She, too, had traced our mother, and when she came to my flat, there was an immediate ease between us. Hearing that she had experienced the same feelings of turmoil and disappointment helped me see that I wasn’t alone. We’re still in touch now and get on really well.
Stella died in 2008, and Esther and I went to her funeral together. While I wasn’t overcome by the sadness that invaded every part of me when my dad had died, I was disturbed by Stella’s death. The wake was full of people who looked like me but who I’d never met, and that made the rejection I felt even more painful.
FEELING LUCKY
I am so grateful for my own family. My wife, Tina, and I have four girls: Breagha, 22, Lilla, 20, Kirsty, 19 and Isla, 16. Even when World War Three breaks out in the house because someone has taken someone else’s top, I love it, because I feel such gratitude to have that love. My Labrador, Maxwell, is the boy of the family. He’s nearly 13, and we have an amazing connection. If you’re feeling low, people want an explanation, but sometimes you can’t articulate what’s wrong. I don’t have to explain to Maxwell. He’s just there for me, without question.
UNDERSTANDING MYSELF
Two years ago, I finally read Stella’s letters. I’d spent years handing letters to people on Long Lost Family from relatives we’d traced, and they’re treated like precious jewels. Meanwhile, there I was with a box of these jewels in my house that I’d never even looked at. But after my bipolar diagnosis and understanding myself better, I decided it was time.
Having Maxwell next to me meant that everything would be okay. I stroked his head for comfort as I read the letters, and his presence instantly soothed me. The letters were full of comments about my radio shows, interviews and my choice of records. Suddenly, I saw that I’d been so unable and unwilling to accept Stella’s lack of explanation or regret, but in her own way, she had been trying.
Presenting Long Lost Family has had a huge impact on me. I know it makes my fellow presenter Davina [Mccall] think profoundly about her life, too. Writing my new book was also a way for me to heal. My first book,
Blue-eyed Son, was about my adoption, but this one digs much deeper into the feelings and emotions as I start to finally understand myself. I always say to people who’ve been on the programme that in sharing their stories with others, they will inspire people to think about their own origins, and I really hope that my story does the same.
• One Of The Family (Hodder & Stoughton) by Nicky Campbell is out on 18 February
‘Presenting Long Lost Family has had a huge impact on me’