Top photo: Benh LIEU SONG (Flickr) / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Two women, both adopted as babies, both grown up with families of their own, and both still asking the same question: who was my mother? On 12 May 2011, the fourth episode of ITV’s Long Lost Family followed Laura McCarthy and Sarah Gale as Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell helped them look for an answer. One search ended with a loss. The other ended with a mother stepping off a plane.
A Baby Born in Northampton
Laura was born in 1966 at St Saviour’s, a mother and baby home in Northampton. Her birth mother, Linda Williamson, was just 16 years old.
Laura grew up in Oxford. She knew she was adopted, but it was not something she was allowed to talk about at home, and her childhood was not a happy one. When she finally looked at her adoption file, she found it was empty. Years later she moved to the other side of the world, to Sydney, Australia, where she built a life with her husband and son. But she still hoped that finding her mother would give her a sense of belonging.
The Sister Who Always Knew
An international search agency had discovered that Linda married around 1967 and had a daughter named Alison a few months later. That meant Laura had a half-sister, but she had never been able to find her.
The programme’s team could. They traced Alison Barnes, a graphic designer, who confirmed that Linda was her mother. She also had difficult news. Linda had left the family in 1972 to move to America, and she had died eight years earlier, at the age of 53.
Laura would never meet the woman she had spent so long looking for. But there was comfort in what came next: Alison had always known she had a sister.
The two women met in Britain, at St Saviour’s itself, the place where Laura’s story began. The building is now a convent. Laura was sad that she had come too late to meet her mother, but she was welcomed warmly into the family, and the sisters looked forward to getting to know each other.
A Happy Childhood, and a Missing Piece
Sarah Gale’s story began differently. Born in 1968, she was raised in Surrey by loving parents, alongside two brothers. By any measure, it was a good childhood. Yet at 42, she still felt something was missing.
In her early twenties she had asked for her adoption file. It named her birth mother as Susan George, and gave a last known address in London. Susan had been 20 years old, a young woman who had moved to London from a village in Derbyshire. Because she was not married, she was sent to a home for unmarried mothers in Putney.
Sarah tried hard to find her. A private investigator had no luck. A trip to Derbyshire turned up only a rumour that Susan had moved to South Africa, or perhaps South America.
The Trail to South Africa
The researchers found the record of Susan’s marriage to Alan Newall in 1975, and a relative suggested that the couple had moved to South Africa. That led them to a Susan Newall with the right date of birth, living alone near Pretoria. She had divorced in the 1980s, had a son 12 years younger than Sarah, and had recently retired from the Red Cross.
Nicky Campbell went to see her at her home. Susan had never forgotten her daughter. She had kept Sarah’s photograph in her home all those years.
Susan flew to Britain, and mother and daughter finally met at a beauty spot near Sarah’s home. It was an emotional reunion. Susan also shared a letter with her daughter, and Sarah said she felt lucky to have finally met her.
Why This Episode Stays With You
These two stories show both sides of a search like this. Sometimes the person you are looking for is gone, but you still find family. And sometimes, after more than 40 years, the person you are looking for has been keeping your picture all along.
Do you know someone who found a relative later in life? Or has a family secret ever brought someone new into your life? We would be honoured to hear your story.
Sources
- TVmaze: Long Lost Family 1×04
- PBS (WEDU): Long Lost Family, Season 1 Episode 4
- Digiguide: Sarah Gale and Laura McCarthy
- ABC iview: Long Lost Family S1 Episode 4
