Episode 10 Family Finders

FAMILY FINDERS FKI T965S/02 BRD000000

Families can be driven apart for all manner of reasons.

I had no information at all about where my mum went.

And when you do lose touch with your loved ones...

You don't know who you are, where have you come from.

..finding them can take a lifetime.

I might have a brother that's

still living here.

Especially when they could be anywhere,

at home or abroad.

And that's where the Family Finders come in.

From international organisations...

Hi, it's the Salvation Army Family Tracing Service.

..to genealogy detective agencies...

For someone to say that it's changed their life, it makes coming to work,

you know, really, really special.

..and dedicated one-man bands...

It's a matter of how much effort you really want to put into it,

how badly you want to solve the problem.

..they hunt through history to bring families back together again.

Finding new family is wonderful.

In this series, we follow the work of the Family Finders.

Suddenly, you get one spark of breakthrough and there they are.

Learning the tricks they use

to track missing relatives through time.

I didn't think I'd ever find my sisters, but I have.

And meeting the people whose lives they change along the way.

I've been waiting to meet John my whole life.

Since we've met, I feel part of a family again.

You just completed my life for me.

Many families get torn apart and it can take years of detective work to

find out why.

Often financial difficulties can lead to relatives being

separated. Sometimes ill health gets in the way,

and occasionally it's the

sheer volume of offspring that can lead to desperate measures.

Today, we follow two such cases.

Tony Robinson who found out late in life that he had siblings he never

knew existed.

And then she dropped a bombshell on me.

She said, "What about Ian?"

and I might have used the words I said but along the lines of,

"Who's Ian?" She said, "Well, the other one that we had adopted."

I said, "What other one?"

And Lorraine Hall who grew up

believing she was a legitimate only child

until the funeral of a family friend revealed the shocking truth.

And I remember saying, "No, no."

And she said, "Get in the car.

She was your mother."

Tony Robinson was born in 1953 and was brought up in Carshalton, Surrey

by his parents, Shirley and Raymond Robinson.

Growing up, there's meself, me sister Linda, me sister Carol,

me sister Diane, me brother Michael and then me sister Marion.

That was the family. I shared a bedroom with me brother Michael,

bunk beds. And me four sisters lived in a room.

A great upbringing, just lower class, not a lot of money.

There were six of us living in a three-bedroom house.

And whenever I could, I did paper rounds, milk rounds, bakers' rounds,

butchers' rounds. Worked in shops just because you couldn't get pocket

money. I just had to earn me own money.

When he was 12,

a childhood illness resulted in Tony being sent away to what was known as

an open air school in the countryside to recuperate.

I was asthmatic so I was sent away to this health school

down in Guildford.

And I was there for a couple of years.

'65 to '67 and I was boarding there.

You know, so, I had a great time down there, though.

Originally developed for the treatment of children

with tuberculosis, by the 1960s, open air schools

were caring for children like Tony with a whole range of

respiratory conditions.

Before the Clean Air Act was revised in 1968,

heavy smog was responsible for regular deaths

from high levels of sulphur dioxide

and those with chest or heart problems were particularly

vulnerable. Many children were sent away from our cities to escape

pollution. Fresh air,

better nutrition and exercise made up the therapeutic regime.

It was during the two years that Tony was boarding

at the open air school

that his parents had to make a heartbreaking decision.

I can remember once being about 10 or 11, that sort of age,

in the back garden. I can remember me mum and dad coming out to say,

"We've had a boy named Stephen.

"We've had to have him adopted."

But at that age, I didn't know what adopted meant.

I had no idea. And it was never discussed afterwards, ever.

Till the day me dad died and me mum was upset about it.

The fact that it was never brought up in conversation all those years

later, it just, it just went out of your mind.

Following the death of his parents decades later,

a chance discovery set off an incredible chain of events.

When me mum died it was down to me.

So, I came down, spent a few days down here sorting out paperwork.

And I came across this Christmas card and a photo

and a letter from West Sussex Adoption Agency, so I thought,

"Well, what's all this about?" When I saw the name Stephen,

I put two and two together.

I suddenly remembered who Stephen was.

Just a flashback of being told about 10 or 11 that they had a boy named

Stephen adopted. So that really set me thinking,

"Oh, what's this all about?"

And that was the chain of events for me...

..going on this trail of trying to discover who, what, where, how,

who Stephen was.

Emboldened by a sense of responsibility,

Tony made the decision to try to find his estranged, younger brother.

At that time, all I knew was Stephen.

You know, so there was a seventh sibling out there somewhere

and I needed to find him to bring him into the fold.

There were still six of us still around

so we needed to find that seventh person.

Tony's first move in tracking Stephen down

was to contact the adoption agency listed on the paperwork.

Well, the first thing I did was I rang West Sussex adoption.

There was a phone number on there so I rang them, explained the scenario

about me mum and all that.

But they wouldn't give me any information because...

They just wouldn't. You know, they wouldn't confirm it.

They wouldn't deny it. I had a copy of a letter,

that was all... They said, "Sorry,

"we just cannot give that information away."

Tony's attention now turned to the mysterious label

on the back of one of the envelopes.

It then got me back to this address that I found on the

back of the Christmas card and there was no name.

So I'm assuming it was Stephen.

So what I did was,

we wrote a letter saying who we were, what we're doing,

why we're trying to do what we're doing

and we sent it to that address and

after about a month, we never got a reply back.

And we thought, "Well, what can we do now?"

The next step was to trawl through phone directories in an attempt to

match a name to an address to find a contact number.

We found addresses that we thought matched the address

and wrote to them first and got no reply back

so we then started looking for a phone number.

We did find a phone number, rang it up and it wasn't...

It was the right phone number but the wrong person.

They didn't live there any more but they did have a number.

I explained the story of what we're trying to do

and because they're a bit hesitant, you know, it could be anybody.

You know, she said, "Look, OK, so give us a couple of days."

I gave her my number and, blow me, I got a phone call back.

We spoke to Jenny, which was Stephen's ex-wife at that time,

and she just went mental in the nicest possible way

that you could think of.

She was screaming and jumping up and down.

She said, "Do you realise how long he's been looking for you?"

I said, "I have no idea.

"I've only just found out."

You know, if it hadn't been...

I had no idea how many times he tried to contact her.

Excuse me. I'm just going to be emotional now.

And it was just that moment, really.

She said, "I'm going to have to ring him."

Within the hour, Tony found himself on the phone

to the brother he'd never known.

And he said, "Hi, Tony. This is your brother, Stephen."

And I just gave the phone to me wife.

I just couldn't take it in for a few minutes.

You know, she was chatting to him as if he'd known her all his life.

You know, then I had to come back and compose meself and then we just

spoke for hours and hours about all sorts of things.

What struck me immediately was there was no animosity.

He was so pleased to find his siblings, you know,

he didn't know how many of us there were.

When I told him he said, "What, how many?"

You know, he had no idea there was another five of us on top of me.

He had no idea.

They wasted no time in setting up a meeting.

Stephen lives in Horsham and I lived up in County Durham.

We were a long way apart from each other,

so it isn't very glamorous but we decided to meet

at Peterborough services. When I pulled into the car park

I had no idea what he was looking like, what he was wearing.

And then I saw this lad sitting and he had the car door open

and he was sitting, and I said, "There's Stephen."

I just said, "There's Stephen."

You know, and we met in the car park, believe it or not.

Then sort of shook hands and said, "Hello, bruv" and all that.

Then we said, "We're going to have a coffee",

then we went inside and was there for hours and hours just going over,

just chatting, really. It was a good day.

I rang me wife up afterwards, my wife, Sharon, and I said,

"I've had a fantastic afternoon," you know, you know,

"there's a three-hour drive home but hey, it was worth it."

Following an emotional reunion,

Tony couldn't wait to tell his other siblings all about their long-lost

brother who he'd finally managed to track down and meet at last, but the

story didn't end there.

Obviously, I spoke to all me sisters individually and all fantastic and

over the moon about it.

They couldn't believe it.

It was such a short time that I found him and

then I was speaking to me younger sister, Marion,

and she was obviously elated and ecstatic

and then she dropped a bombshell on me.

She said, "Fantastic news."

She said, "What about Ian?"

And I might have used the words I said but along the lines of,

"Who's Ian?" She said, "Well, the other one that we had adopted."

I said, "What other one?" And she said, "You must've known?"

I said, "No, I know nothing about Ian at all."

I just didn't know. I knew nothing.

Having just found one missing brother,

Tony was about to start searching all over again.

Not knowing he existed for all those years and then finding out he did

exist, it's... Every emotion you could possibly think of is there.

And more.

Lorraine Hall was born in 1964

and raised in Birmingham as the only child of Pat and Ray Edwards.

I was brought up believing that Pat and Ray were my natural parents.

I had no reason to doubt that.

Growing up, Lorraine spent lots of time with a family friend, Sylvia,

who lived nearby with her 11 children.

Sylvia was known to me as Pat's friend.

We used to go and have visits

and I used to go and play with Sylvia's children.

And Pat used to spend quite a bit of time with Sylvia.

To me, they was good friends.

And they was confidants as well.

But when Lorraine was 15,

Sylvia died and a huge family secret was dramatically unveiled at the

funeral, attended by Lorraine and her parents.

I remember being asked, when the children

were getting into the main family car, to join them.

And Pat came to me and she pointed and she directed me to get into the

family front car and I said, "No.

"No, I can't."

And Pat was quite forceful.

I remember her putting her hands on my shoulders and saying to me,

"Come on, now, get in the car."

And I remember standing up to Pat which I didn't do very often,

but I remember saying, "No.

"No." And she said, "Get in the car.

"She was your mother."

After 15 years of believing she was the only child of Pat and Ray,

Lorraine was stunned by the shock revelation

that Sylvia was, in fact, her biological mother.

I remember being embarrassed.

I remember being totally lost.

I remember...

..just putting my head down.

I just remember holding my head down in shame.

Not, not being able to breathe.

Not being able to remember anything.

In a heartbeat,

Lorraine discovered not only that her mother

wasn't who she thought she was,

but that the childhood friends she'd grown up playing with were

actually her brothers and sisters.

Knowing that

I am one of 12 children, and been brought up an only child...

I, I...

Words, sometimes...

The truth behind why Lorraine was the only child

not to be raised by her birth mother remained a mystery

and as quickly as Lorraine had discovered

she had siblings, she lost them again.

Until her death at the age of 46,

11 of Sylvia's 12 children had been in her care

but following the funeral, the children were split up.

The eldest left home, some went into care,

and the youngest moved away from the area with their father.

The biggest thing for me at the time,

and it's something I struggled all my life with,

was the untruths.

Maybe Pat or Ray or both of them

could have sat me down and told me the truth,

that Sylvia was my birth mother.

Everything I'd grown up to believe was a lie.

Lorraine went on to leave home, get married

and raise a family of her own.

But questions about the whereabouts of her brothers and sisters and what

had become of them plagued her.

All my life...

I was always wondering where my siblings were.

Didn't know what country they was in,

didn't know what city they was in.

Hoping, longing one day to be able to walk down the street to see them.

Lorraine began trawling genealogy websites for any trace

of Sylvia's 11 children.

I really felt that I,

maybe I needed to put down on paper the family tree

as I knew it because I felt that when my grandson was born,

I needed maybe to do something

so my daughter would have answers readily available.

That many times it came up blank.

I was searching and I still could not get nowhere

and then this one day out of the blue...

I had a match that popped up and it was a proper match

and it matched the age, it matched the information

I'd already discovered.

It matched local location in Birmingham

and I thought, maybe this could be it.

But when Lorraine tried to access the details of the family tree,

she found it was a locked, private profile and to be granted access,

she would have to write to the administrator and introduce herself.

I didn't know if anyone in my family knew I existed.

I didn't know if they even knew that Sylvia had me.

So it took me more,

another couple of days and I composed a message

saying that Sylvia was my mother.

The administrator passed Lorraine's e-mail on

and a week later came a reply.

When I saw the name popped up that I had an e-mail,

every emotion you could ever imagine.

I was happy, I couldn't believe it.

I was scared. For the worries and woes and rejection.

Maybe they don't want to know.

Maybe they don't want to be part of your life.

All Lorraine could do now was to sit back and wait to find out if these

really were the siblings she was so desperate to find.

-Do you recognise that?

-Yeah.

-I don't.

-It's Mum's purse.

Mum's purse.

In Surrey, Tony Robinson had successfully tracked down

his brother, Stephen, who had been adopted as a baby

but his sense of achievement was short-lived

when his sister dropped a bombshell.

While Tony had been away at boarding school,

there had been another baby boy also adopted out of the family.

My sisters assumed that I knew that Ian had been born.

I was away. I was away from home. I knew nothing about it.

They just assumed I knew and it was just never...like Stephen,

it was never discussed. But I knew nothing.

With the small amount of information his sisters had given him,

Tony began looking for his second brother.

His first port of call was the Family Records Centre.

So I went through the records and found Ian Robinson

on the 5th or the 6th of December 1967.

So I found his birth certificate.

Having uncovered his brother's full name and a date of birth,

Tony's next step was to visit his local adoption agency

to try and find a current contact detail for Ian.

They said they would do what they could

and they came back after a meeting

and they said, "We've done some digging for you,

"we've discovered he's changed his name.

"But we're not allowed to tell you what his name is."

So, I wasn't happy.

And I said, "Well, how the hell am I going to find him?"

He said, "It's down to him."

"If he wants to find you, he'll find you."

It looked like Tony's search had hit a brick wall.

I was going through every emotion possible - elation, frustration.

But little did Tony know

he wasn't the only one who was looking for a lost brother.

I was sitting on me laptop just using social media.

It was about 11, 11:30 at night, just before going to bed,

just catching up on things and I saw this message appear.

And I read it, and I thought, "What's this all about?"

It was a name that I never knew.

Wasn't friends with anybody.

And his name suddenly appeared.

And it was saying along the lines of, "Hi, my name is Martin.

"I've been told from an early age I've been adopted,

"and my family name was Robinson.

"My parents was this name and that name.

"I've got my siblings with all the names."

He said, "I'm just trying to find out if you're my older brother."

It turned out that Ian had changed his name to Martin

some years earlier.

Tony had found his second missing brother

or rather, his little brother had found him.

A flurry of e-mails followed.

It was emotional even though we were on the end of a phone, it was still,

like, "I'm talking to me brother",

you know, this is someone I know absolutely nothing about

but it was my brother.

You don't know what to say.

You know, there's a million questions you want to ask

but you don't have enough time to ask a million questions.

There was something like a little bond straightaway

between me and Tony.

It was like we did actually, kind of, know each other

whereas we hadn't spoken to each other.

We didn't really know too much detail about each other.

There was that little connection between us.

And during the course of that week, I spoke to him

every day for hours and hours,

just talking about everything and nothing.

Just to hear his voice.

Martin had been adopted when he was seven months old.

I always knew I was adopted from a very early age.

I always knew that my name was Ian Robinson

and I was the youngest of eight.

And I originally came from the Carshalton area.

That was all that I knew. But my mum never kept anything from me.

I remember her saying that if you want to know anything, let me know.

But obviously, at that time, I had a family and I didn't have the...

any interest at that time for looking for the real family.

Only really when me mum passed away that...

..there was a...

a stirring, shall we say.

I think, because, out of respect,

when my parents were still alive, they were my parents.

But when his mum died she left him some paperwork and it contained some

intriguing information.

It's basically a history of my family

that was given to my mum and dad when I was adopted.

It tells me the years that me brothers and sisters were born in,

the fact that there was three boys, four girls.

It gave me a lot more detail than what I actually had.

It also hints as to why I was adopted

and it also explains in it as well that

the next one above me, Stephen, was also adopted.

It was a little bit of a shock to actually read it,

to find out reasons why but it says in here,

my mother feels the strain of coping with such a large family

on limited income.

So straightaway you can tell that it was financial.

It explains that what happened with Stephen

also happened with me for the same reasons.

Martin decided to apply to the authorities

for details of his birth family.

Done it online and made the application.

And put a request in for the adoption papers and family records.

All in all, I think it took about eight months.

After a lifetime of separation,

and many months of searching for each other,

the brothers got in touch and arranged to meet.

The elation of seeing him for the first time...

It was a hug.

And I'm not normally a hugger.

It was a hug, a few tears.

Because it made the family complete.

Tears were flowing from both sides and we got on great.

We actually got on like

we knew each other. We weren't complete strangers.

We were laughing moments after we had stopped crying.

Today, Martin, Ian and another of his new-found siblings,

Diane, are meeting up.

Their other adopted brother Stephen would have loved to have joined them

but his daughter is about to have a baby any day.

The first coincidence they've discovered

is that Martin used to live on the same estate

that his sister, Diane, still lives on today.

I mean, I lived on the estate for about 12 years and to think that my

sister's actually lived on the estate at the same time.

It's so weird that we never actually bumped into each other.

Then again, I wouldn't have known anything about them,

so I wouldn't have known what they looked like

or any sort of family resemblance, but

it's nice to actually go back onto the estate and actually

get a few memories back.

-Are you nervous?

-Yeah.

-Are you?

-Hiya, bro.

-Hiya.

-Come on in.

-How are you?

-Long time no see.

-I know, it's good, isn't it, to see you again?

-How you doing, young man? Nice to see you.

-All right.

Nice to see you again.

With over 40 years of family life to catch up on,

the siblings are keen to fill each other in

on the time they were apart.

And they're starting by swapping some treasured family snaps.

Now that is the earliest one that I've actually got of myself.

-Now...

-Pick you out.

..pick me out and that. Yeah, there's a football team at school.

-It's that one.

-Yeah.

-You're the goalkeeper.

-The goalkeeper.

-Obviously runs in the family, then.

I was a goalkeeper. Smallest player there, but I was a goalkeeper.

Same here. I'm virtually the smallest one there.

All right, now, these ones are the ones with the funny hairstyle.

-Oh, go on, then.

-Go on, shock us.

-I can't wait.

-Yeah.

-Oh, my God.

-I had a nice relaxing time in Austria.

-Is that you?

-Yeah.

-He's posing.

-Is that really you?

-You can see it's him, yeah.

You can tell he's a Robinson.

-That there.

-Oh, that's old.

-It is.

-They're really old.

That is us all on holiday at Butlins.

But that's Nan and grandad,

and I don't even remember them being on holiday with us.

-That's Dad's mum and dad.

-All right.

And, obviously, Dad must have taken the picture.

We all had long hair and before we went away Dad made us all wear short

-back and sides.

-You know, the old pudding-basin.

-Yeah, I remember.

I cried my eyes out. I really did.

That's Mum on her own. I assume it must be the same setting, is it?

-Yeah.

-That's Butlins, isn't it? Sitting on her...

-Yeah.

-Dad always does that pose, doesn't he?

-Yeah, he's a bit of a poser.

Yeah.

That's the little 'un, that's her, sitting on one of the toy cars.

-With Noddy.

-Still can't drive, can you?

-No.

No idea where that would be. Would that be, like, a Christmas thing

or something? One of those...

-I would imagine. We used to do them, didn't we?

-We used to

-have big family gatherings and things.

-Parties, things like that.

Now that I'm actually seeing some of the pictures,

I can actually get the feel of what it was like as a Robinson family.

And I do actually regret not being part of it,

but, obviously, that wasn't my choice at the time.

But it's still all a blur to me

because I just really can't remember that far back.

And it must have been difficult for them.

-Yeah.

-To make that decision in the first place.

There's so much that

-I still don't know about.

-Of course you don't.

And obviously, not being involved, there's so much, like,

history that you've got,

but it's nice, it's really nice, to see the pictures.

-I'm glad you're with us now.

-Oh, yeah, definitely.

And they're all looking forward to yet another new addition

to the family.

-I haven't heard from Stephen. He's not a grandad yet.

-No?

I'm still waiting. I said, it don't matter if it's one

in the afternoon, or three in the morning,

-you need to let me know straightaway.

-Is he excited?

Extremely. Yeah, he's like a cat on a hot tin roof at the moment.

-Yeah.

-He's really excited.

Martin's keen to see how the estate has changed since he lived there

in the '80s.

And who better to show him around than long-time resident Diane.

So how far down would it have gone, then? Right up to the end.

Right to the very end. To this road here.

-We've ended here...

-Yeah.

..and then got to where those houses are right down there.

-Oh, blimey.

-Right, got a picture of it, look.

-Oh, wow.

Obviously, this is where it is, this is the old building.

The original building?

-This is the original.

-Can you see

-your flat on there?

-I reckon probably around there.

-There.

-Yeah.

-Right.

What a difference though, isn't it?

No, because that wall there would be just up there.

To look at it now you think, "Oh, my God. I lived there."

Yeah, I know.

-For 12 years.

-For 12 years, yeah.

-Yeah, I know.

-I mean, I first come here, it was '88, I think,

middle of '88.

Bearing in mind you're only, like, literally, a two-minute walk away.

Yeah, it's just funny how close we were.

It's frightening, innit? It's very frightening.

'Finding out that'

I lived on the same estate as three of the sisters

and with Diane as well. I was here for 12 years.

She's here for, like, 30-odd years.

To be so close and not even know about each other...

..that was a really weird feeling.

It's just changed so much, hasn't it?

I know. I couldn't believe it when I first come down.

'You can't put'

how important it was to get the family back as a complete family.

There's just no way of expressing that.

Not knowing he existed for all those years and then finding out he did

exist, and then, and now he's in the fold,

it's difficult to put into words.

It's...

It's every emotion you could possibly think of is there.

And more.

This was actually something that I never expected was going to happen

because I had my own family and so this was the last thing on my mind.

But now it's happened,

it's nice because they're so welcoming

and I feel as though that I've been

part of the family for a lot longer than I actually have.

So, it's definitely something that's an added bonus

and it's going to continue.

Now Martin has come back into our lives, we will never let him go.

He's part of our family.

Always will be.

It had to become my mission in life to somehow get us all together as a

family. That was it.

It just has to be. You know, and now it's happened, it's, well,

we're just starting out again now and

we just can't wait to keep it going.

In Birmingham, Lorraine Hall was trying to track down siblings

years after the shock discovery, at 15,

that the woman she thought was a family friend

was actually her biological mother.

Missing out on possibly the life I could have had

compared to the one that I did,

not being at any weddings...

..having 38, 39 years missed Christmases.

It's all them moments that I lost, all them years where I felt alone.

When a family finding website threw up a match,

Lorraine contacted the genealogist involved.

It turned out that he had been researching the family

for his friend who lived 300 miles away in Scotland.

Her name was Donna, and she was one of Sylvia's daughters.

Lorraine had found one of the 11 siblings she'd been searching for.

Very happy to send her an e-mail.

And she took a couple of days to reply back.

I think she was so, sort of, shocked.

Donna was the youngest of Sylvia's children.

I was born in 1975 in Birmingham, the last of well, at the time,

there were only 11 children that my mum had.

Knew about or knew of my half brothers and sisters

cos two or three of them, sort of, lived with us, on and off,

in the first sort of few years.

After Sylvia died, Donna's father took her,

her sister and her brother to live in Great Yarmouth

and they lost touch with the rest of the family.

I don't know what happened. We just lost touch and I think, you know,

the Christmas cards eventually stopped,

and that's sadly what happened.

The communication line faded away.

Then, years later,

a health scare prompted Donna to pick up the search.

I'd had breast cancer at 26 and

we went to the family history clinic and, of course,

they were interested to know, well, let's have a look at your,

you know, maternal side and see if it's genetic from that.

I then had to try and remember their details that would be nice to find

and even to warn them.

Certainly if the cancer was genetic from Mum's side.

Donna's diagnosis now gave extra impetus

to her search to trace her relatives.

I can remember trawling through the Friends Reunited school

list trying to sort of have a rough guess. OK, well,

they would have gone to school.

I know roughly where we lived so they would have gone to school

around there. They, you know...

but going through and then no names were obviously coming up.

Struggling, Donna turned to a friend,

an amateur genealogist for help and he began to build

an online family tree for her.

My friend had put on one of the forums

looking for information about my mum and her husband.

Lorraine had seen that.

I think her heart must have skipped a beat and she went,

"That's my mum."

Lorraine and Donna were soon exchanging a flood of e-mails.

"Sorry it's taken a few days to reply,

"to be honest, I did not know where to start.

"I suppose I've been in shock.

"Having this contact has always been my secret ambition.

"And a dream.

"And I longed deep down but I thought it would never happen.

"I knew that you'd all moved away

"but I was not sure who with, and where to.

"No-one told me. And to be honest,

"I've never known where to start looking.

"I'm so looking forward to hearing back from you. Thank you."

The sisters arrange to meet.

So we met up eventually at...

after Christmas in Chesterfield.

I got there. I was on the steps early.

I'm always late, but for that I was early.

I was standing there. I was looking around.

Couldn't see no one.

Everyone that was walking by, I was hoping, praying it was them.

And then all of a sudden, I saw this little person...

..and straight away, looking into her eyes, I could see it was Donna.

It was like meeting a very old friend for the fir...

you know, again after a number of years

when you haven't got to see them.

I just remember walking round with this silly grin on my face watching

every movement, watching her walking around.

Lorraine and I are almost so similar, you know,

in our outlook and the way that we view the world,

it's quite frightening,

at the same time to, you know, and that's why you think, God,

it is weird.

But the story didn't end there.

Donna's research was homing in on another of the siblings.

An older sister called Belinda.

I think I might have found Belinda through finding her ex-husband's

account first.

It's a bit convoluted way round it but there, again,

then looking and going,

"Is that them?" And then,

you go back and have a look at the family photos

and think, "Yeah, it is."

Donna sent a message and waited for a reply.

I sent a message back straightaway, "Yes, it's me."

It's Belinda.

Yeah, it's me.

So, I thought, "God, Donna's found me."

How bizarre is that?

Donna passed Belinda's details onto Lorraine and once in touch,

they quickly made an astonishing discovery.

I couldn't believe it.

Belinda and me had been living less than a mile apart since I had moved

back to Birmingham three years previously.

Maybe we had walked past each other on the street.

Maybe we had been in the same supermarket queue.

Belinda was born in 1961.

Sylvia's sixth child.

Living at home was a bit of an ordeal.

I was mainly left to look after the children.

Get them up in the morning, get them ready for school.

Eventually, stress of home life proved too much for Belinda

and she moved out at 14, leaving her half sister, baby Donna behind.

The day it all kicked off and

I ran away from home and Donna was there and we had an afternoon where

Donna was just sat on my lap,

didn't leave me alone and then when I had to go...

..she wouldn't let go.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

And that was heartbreaking to leave.

I really didn't want to leave her but I thought, "I've got to go now."

After Sylvia's death, when the family dispersed,

Belinda lost touch with all the siblings

until the moment Donna tracked her down but it was Lorraine

who was the first to actually meet her older sister.

She said, "Shall we meet? Can we meet? Can we meet?"

I said, "Yeah, yeah, fine. No problem."

I saw her standing there and I thought...

The emotions, it was, like, whoa.

Wow, that's my sister.

So I broke into a run and we had a massive hug and we were crying and,

like, "Oh, my God."

I just fell into her arms.

I think we stood there for about five, ten minutes, just hugging.

It had been so long.

It had been over 40-odd years since I'd seen Belinda.

And there's so many coincidences

with Lorraine.

She only lives down the road from me.

We'd been so close and yet so far.

Today is a special day.

Separated for decades, Donna is on her way

to meet the older sisters she's missed out on for so many years.

This morning, we're actually heading to Belinda's house,

which is the first time I've

been there, actually, so to meet her and Lorraine.

So quite excited about that, actually.

I think last time was a bit too, a bit too short, really,

to have a proper catch-up

so it'll be nice to have a bit longer with them.

It's been a long time coming.

Very long time.

She'll be here in a minute.

I know.

I had a secret ambition that one day I'd walk into a room and...

..my siblings would be there.

I always dreamed of that.

Never realising and never thinking it would ever happen.

And here I am.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hiya.

-Hiya.

Growing up in different households meant that the sisters missed out on

each other's childhoods so today they've brought along some photos.

That's me.

So you do look like me there, don't you?

-Oh, wow.

-Oh, look.

And Donna has something that holds sentimental value for all of them.

I've got one other thing that I've bought down that I thought would be

interesting to show you.

-What's that?

-Do you recognise that?

-Yeah.

-I don't.

It was Mum's purse.

-Mum's purse.

-I've had it for years.

Along with the purse, Donna's brought along

their mother's favourite pieces of jewellery which she inherited.

Wow. I haven't seen that in absolutely years.

How long has it been since you've seen these, then?

Obviously must be 35 years or more.

More than that. More than that.

Do you want any of them?

-Could I have that?

-Of course you can.

-You're more than welcome to it.

-Thank you.

You'll actually have something of Mum's.

Thank you for that. I will treasure that.

I will. It's the only thing I've got of my mum's.

-Have you not got anything?

-No.

Nothing. That is really nice, to have something of my mum.

It's just so nice that you're both here.

It's lovely to see you again.

Yeah. It's perfect.

Perfect.

The sisters have planned a trip to the local crematorium where their

mother's funeral was held all those years ago.

Here, Sylvia's name has been entered into the book of remembrance.

-Almost there.

-Almost there.

-Are you OK?

-Yeah, yeah, it's just sad, isn't it?

It is sad.

The three of us here today has meant so much.

It's kind of closure, in a way, for me.

It's... I think today's closure.

-What I needed.

-Closure and reopening the next chapter.

All three sisters are now in regular contact and for the first time,

Lorraine has the family she's always craved.

It's been fantastic having them back, as I say, though, you know,

I wouldn't have it any other way and, you know, we've still got 30,

40 years to make up for.

Today has been such an emotional journey.

It's been something

I've waited a very long time for and to share it today with my sisters...

I think it will change me.

The three of us back together was absolutely wonderful.

I thoroughly...

It's been a pleasure to see them again.

And to enjoy each other's company.

I can't wait for the next time.