Top photo: Editor / Own photo, via Wikimedia Commons
Some people spend a lifetime with their brothers and sisters. Carole Davies spent a single afternoon with hers, in a park in Cardiff, when she was 14. On 26 May 2011, the sixth episode of ITV’s Long Lost Family told her story, along with that of a young mother who had been looking for her father since she was a teenager.
The Promise in the Park
Carole grew up in Cardiff in the 1950s, an only child raised by her mother and grandmother. Her parents had divorced when she was a baby. Her father, Gerald Thomas, remarried and moved to London.
When she was 14, he came to visit. He brought his two younger children, Keith and Lynn, and took them all to Roath Park. It was the only time Carole ever met them. Her father promised he would come back. He never did.
A Name She Had Never Seen
Carole waited until after her mother died to begin searching. Her father’s death certificate gave her some sad news and a surprise. He had died in 2002, and the certificate named a daughter Carole had never heard of: Olwen Camfield.
The researchers traced Keith first. Then Olwen, known as Olly, was found at her flat in Ware, Hertfordshire. It turned out that she had known about Carole as a child. Keith and Lynn remembered that day in the park too. After all those years, Carole had not been forgotten.
Back Where It Began
When Carole heard that her family had been found, there was only one place for them to meet. All three siblings came to Roath Park, the same place she had first met Keith and Lynn as children. It was a warm reunion, and they made plans to stay in touch.
A Daughter Who Felt Different
The second story belonged to Samantha Gregolowicz, known as Sam, a 25-year-old mother from St Neots in Cambridgeshire. Sam grew up in Peterborough in a white family. Her father was Caribbean, and she has described feeling different from the people around her.
Her parents, who had lived in East London, separated when she was a baby. Sam saw her father, Patrick Lewis, on weekends until she was a small child. Then her mother moved to Peterborough. The last contact she remembered was when he came to their door and left some hair items for her.
Sam began searching when she was 15, but she could find no record of him.
The Search Narrows
The programme’s researchers narrowed the search to East London, Essex and Kent, and then to a Patrick Lewis in Dagenham, Essex. He was an ambulance driver, living with his partner and their two young sons.
Patrick had his own side of the story. He said he had tried to stay in touch, and that he had left Christmas presents at Sam’s home after she moved, but he was turned away.
Father and daughter met near Sam’s home in St Neots. Patrick had written her a letter, telling her he had never forgotten her. It was an emotional first meeting after so many years, and both of them hoped it would be the start of a lasting relationship.
The Things We Remember
What stays with you about this episode is how long small memories can last. An afternoon in a park. A bag of hair items left at a door. Both of these women held on to those moments for years, and both found out that the people on the other side had been holding on as well.
Is there a day from your childhood you have never forgotten? Have you ever found a relative you had only met once? We would be honoured to hear your story.
