Long Lost Family continues with episode 3, and the tragic story of a woman who thought her mum had been murdered.
On Monday (July 17, 2023), the award-winning ITV series continues with more incredible and moving stories of people desperate to find missing family.
In episode 3, Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell help a man who was bought up believing he was an only child. However, after his mum died, he was shocked to discover that his mum had more children.
With the help of Long Lost Family, Paul discovers his mum took her secrets to the grave…
Paul McFarlane searches for his siblings in Long Lost Family episode 3
In Long Lost Family episode 3, viewers are introduced to Paul McFarlane. The home care assistant discovered his late mother had led a complicated life before meeting his father – and that he wasn’t her only child.
Raised as an only child, second searcher Paul’s beloved mother Ada died when he was nine. Years later, a single piece of paper threw all his assumptions about his small family into question. His mother had a mysterious past, and he wasn’t her only child after all…
Paul tells us: “I had no idea whatsoever that my mother had secrets. She took this to her grave. She told nobody, not even my father.”
Paul, now 57, lives in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, but had lived in the Netherlands for more than three decades. He grew up an only child with his mother Ada and dad Alan.
At age nine, tragedy struck Paul’s family when his mum died of a heart attack. Six years after his mother’s sudden death, Paul received another shock when he saw his birth certificate for the first time and saw his mum had a different name.
She had been married before. Paul took a DNA test, and eventually discovered a link to his mother’s family, a cousin. From there, Paul learns that his mum Ada vanished from her first family, and that she had two children, Beverley and Stephen.
Long Lost Family episode 3: Mum Ada ‘popped to the shops’ but never returned
Paul tells us: “From thinking I was an only child, to finding out I have two half-siblings, it was a lot to take in. I was a little bit angry with my mum at the beginning. I couldn’t understand why she gave them up, because she was a wonderful mother to me. When I found out about my brother and sister, it was complete excitement, I just wanted to find them. It was the missing link.”
Sadly Stephen, who had learning difficulties, had died three years ago in a care home. Paul says: “I was disappointed I didn’t get to meet my brother. I would love to have built a relationship with him. I was so close, but too late.”
However, the Long Lost Family team managed to locate Paul’s half-sister Beverley. But her’s was not a happy tale. She explains: “We were living with my grandmother in London. One day, my mum [Ada] said she was popping to the shops, and that she wouldn’t be long.
“But she never came back. I thought she might have been murdered. But she just started a new life, without looking back. We got the police involved, but there was no trace. I was one years old.”
Beverley was later fostered, and adopted. Meanwhile her mum Ada started a new life with husband Alan, and her new son Paul.
Caroline Kinsey finds her birth son Simon after more than 40 years
Long Lost Family episode 3 also meets a mum on a quest to find the birth son she gave away. More than 40 years ago, Caroline Kinsey was pregnant, alone, and unable to provide the kind of family and upbringing she believed all children deserved. Burdened by her heart-breaking decision to give her son up for adoption, Caroline longs to find him, to hear that he did have a happy childhood, and to know whether he can forgive her after all these years.
Caroline, now 63, lives in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire and admits she “thinks of her first-born son every single day”.
When she was 18, Caroline moved out of the family home and started working at her brother’s sports shop in Epping, Essex. A hockey player, Caroline had been seeing her boyfriend for about a year when she fell pregnant at the age of 19.
She says: “It took me a couple of attempts to tell him I was pregnant. He was speechless. It became apparent, seeing as he cut off contact, that he didn’t want to become a father. It was a shock for me to be left living by myself not knowing what to do.”
‘I never held my baby’
In January 1980, Caroline gave birth to a son in St Margaret’s Hospital in Epping when she was 20. She named him Simon, but had already decided to give the baby up for adoption.
She explains: “The decision to give Simon Brown up for adoption was entirely my own decision. I do believe a family unit should be a mother and father because you work as a team to raise a child. I didn’t have any money, and I wasn’t able to give a baby the sort of upbringing and childhood I wanted to give him.”
Recovering in hospital, Caroline only saw her son twice. “I never held him. If I had of held him, I wouldn’t have been able to give him up. I just remember seeing this little bundle, with lots of black hair. That was the last time I saw him.”
Twenty years later, Caroline had twins Tom and Amy with her husband David, and the feelings for Simon all came back…
Read more: Mum forced to give her son up for adoption at 9 days old stunned to discover his famous connections
Long Lost Family continues on Monday, July 17, 2023 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.
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