Episode 8 Family Finders

Families can be driven apart for all manner of reasons.

My mum went away and didn't come back.

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

I never saw Kathleen again.

..finding them can take a lifetime.

I wonder where he is, I wonder what he's doing.

You don't really know where to begin.

Especially when they could be anywhere - at home or abroad.

And that's where the family-finders come in.

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

From international organisations...

There's never been a day when we've never had new enquiries.

..to genealogy detective agencies...

When is it you last had contact with him?

..and dedicated one-man bands.

I like to do the searches other people can't get

because it makes me feel good.

They hunt through history to bring families back together again.

You are my biological dad.

In this series we follow the work of the family-finders.

This case came from our Australian colleagues.

Learning the tricks they use

to track missing relatives through time...

I'm 68 years of age, she's 75 years of age and we're just starting off.

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

I said, "Well, this is your younger sister."

It's a miracle.

I was struck speechless and I couldn't stop crying.

It's a proud moment for Dad.

That was the start of finding my family.

When a relative suddenly disappears from family life,

leaving confusion and heartbreak behind,

attempts to search for them years later

can be a frustrating emotional experience,

fraught with dead ends.

But today, alongside established organisations,

are amateur people-finders prepared to do the detective work

and make the connections to lost loved ones when all else has failed.

There's a lot of people like myself

who've gained a lot of knowledge over the years

and we all club together to find information for these people.

John Haydon was just three years old

when his mother Eileen disappeared in 1945.

One night at the end of the World War,

my mother just walked out - closed the door and went.

And that was the last recollection or know - or know of - my mother.

John and his daughter, Leslie, often spoke about how much

he missed having a mum.

Me and Lee were really, really lucky because we knew the background

and the upbringing that my dad had,

but it never, ever, once impacted on me and Lee.

We were always brought up with love.

But it was always as if there was a hole...

-Yeah, it's true, that is...

-..left behind.

I mean, whatever drove her to leave you behind

didn't mean that she stopped loving you.

I mean, obviously, maybe she thought she had no choice but to run

-but couldn't take you with her.

-Mm.

-It's just one of those things we'll never know, will we?

-No.

John tried to search for his mother using the internet.

We did try - we put the name in, to see, on searches,

but we didn't really come up with very much.

Dizzy! Come on!

While John was drawing a blank, he had no way of knowing

that across the Atlantic someone was trying to find him.

Come on, what you doing?

When a relative leaves their family behind,

the idea of searching for them after a lifetime apart

can seem like an overwhelming task.

But, fortunately, there are organisations

who are dedicated to doing the search on their behalf.

All cases bring their own challenges

and putting people back in contact,

yes, it is a special moment.

Paul Smith loves classic cars.

He puts it down to a freewheeling childhood in 1960s Essex

and a father who drove cars for a living.

My father was a chauffeur.

My mother looked after the house and brought up the children.

A fairly normal childhood, as far as I can remember.

You know, quite a nice time to be brought up, actually,

in the early '60s.

Everything was much slower and simpler,

there wasn't all the distractions that there are today.

We sat around the table and had dinner

and watched telly in the evening and went on family outings.

Fairly basic - nothing too special, because money was tight, I assume.

I didn't have any myself!

John was the eldest of three and, with his dad at work,

he helped out his mum.

I remember having quite a large part to do with

their sort of early-stage upbringing -

taking them out in the pram,

taking them to the park and feeding

and lots of things to do with young children.

I was about 10, 11 years old then.

When he did see his dad, it was a real event.

He used to come home in fancy cars, like a Rolls-Royce...

I remember him taking me out in that.

I think that's where I got maybe the seeds of my interest

in motor cars when I was a bit older.

But when Paul was 11, his father hit the road for good.

It was just a question of coming home one day from shopping with mother,

and father had upped and left - for whatever reason.

From that day on, I never saw him again.

At that age, I was not really privy to the whys and wherefores.

She never told me anything about it.

Mum was quite a strong lady, really.

She didn't show much emotion about it - certainly not in front of me.

From that time onwards, really, Mother was on her own.

I think it was just a question of, well, this is the situation,

we just live with it.

It's not knowing the reasons why he left in the first place,

not knowing how he would have felt.

But I think, at the end of the day,

it comes to a point when you think it's something you've got to do

before it's too late, really.

I think if you didn't do it you'd regret it

when you found out that your father, mother, whoever, had died,

then you think, "I wish I'd have done that sooner."

And then I was told by a friend that the Salvation Army

are very good at tracing people.

The Salvation Army has more than 100 years of experience

tracking down lost family members.

This time it was a huge challenge,

because Paul's dad's name is John Smith.

When people contact us with a name like John Smith

and only can give us a rough idea of when the person was born,

when I done a check to see how many there was,

there was 6,338 possible entries.

So you can see how difficult it is

to be able to take on a search with that many records.

With more than 6,000 possible John Smiths to consider,

would Paul even get close

to discovering what happened to his father?

In 1945, when John Haydon was three years old,

his mother, Eileen, disappeared from his life.

It had such a profound bearing on the whole of my life, really,

what my mother did.

Now 73, with family and grandchildren of his own,

various attempts to trace his mother over the years have failed.

I kept trying and kept thinking to myself,

"All we need is a lucky break to just find a clue to the jigsaw."

Unknown to John, the mystery as to what became of his mother

was about to be solved in a seemingly unrelated

case from America that had come to the attention

of local amateur family-finder Margaret.

I came across this thread where this lady from the US

was looking for information on the burials of her grandparents.

"Before my mother passed away I promised I would go back to England

"and try to find my grandparents' graves.

"Mum was orphaned at 14.

"I haven't been able to find anything,

"I would greatly appreciate any help."

It touched my heart, and I couldn't get this out of my head at all.

It was just...so sad.

The message had been posted nearly 4,000 miles away

in the American state of Tennessee by Diane Messer,

who was trying to fulfil a quest she started 20 years ago

for her late mother, Eileen Haydon.

I had always wanted to find some of my roots in England

and I'd wanted to surprise Mom

and find out where the grandparents were buried,

and I hoped one day to go there and put flowers on their grave.

I would send off for birth certificates

and I couldn't find anything - it's like they didn't exist.

I just kept saying, "This makes no sense.

"Why can't I find even a birth certificate for Mom?

"This is crazy." For two decades, I tried to find these things,

but she had nothing from her childhood.

She had no pictures, nothing.

Diane was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1956

to British-born Eileen Haydon

and her Italian-American husband, Peter Marquize.

I had a lovely childhood.

I lived in a semidetached house,

my cousins lived right next door - I had three girl cousins,

so they were the closest thing I had to sisters,

and my Aunt Rose was next door.

An only child, when she was 12,

Diane and her parents moved from New Orleans

to the tourist town of Gatlinburg in Tennessee.

When we moved to Gatlinburg,

our house was basically on the top of a big hill overlooking the mountains,

and there was nobody around,

so I didn't have friends or anyone for quite a while

until I got into school.

It's lonely, being an only child.

It's nice in some ways because of course you get all the attention -

you're the centre of their world and you're very close to your parents

but there is a lot of lonely time.

As an adult, Diane met and married her husband Doug,

and they lived close to her mother all her life.

Shortly before her mother passed away,

she bequeathed Diane a necklace she named Spike.

She was at home for a couple of weeks before she passed, and she said,

"I want you to promise me something." I'm like, "OK."

"I want you to promise you'll wear Spike at least once."

And she had nicknamed the little snake necklace Spike.

I'm like, "OK." I thought it was

a rather odd deathbed request, but I said, "All right,

"I will wear Spike at least once, I promise."

After her mother died,

Diane still continued to try and find her British grandparents.

I tried and I tried -

and then one day I was trying again, and I found a site called RootsChat.

RootsChat is a free internet family-finding service,

staffed by amateur people-finders like Margaret.

There's a lot of people like myself on there

who have gained a lot of knowledge over the years

and we all club together to find information for these people.

With some research through birth, marriage and death records,

Margaret and her colleagues were able to discover

what Diane could not.

We found out that her mother was not named Haydon,

she was named Eileen W Pinches,

who had married an Edward John Haydon.

It was also revealed to Diane that she had an older half-brother.

I'm like, "Are you telling me I could have a brother?!"

It was just such a foreign concept.

Here I am sitting in my office at work and all of a sudden,

they're telling me I might have a brother

and my mother had been married before, I'm like...

It was just kind of sensory overload.

I said, "I have got to find my brother."

Over in England, John Haydon received a message out of the blue.

I was just sitting, this one night, this message came through -

"We believe your mother was Eileen Pinches.

"Would you like to carry on with this conversation?"

And, erm, biggest shock...

To be searching for something and all of a sudden, there it was...

in my lap!

The message was from Diane

but she was yet to reveal herself

until she was certain she had the right person.

The next question come asking about dates and everything,

and had I got any birth certificates for me mother

so I found the birth certificate.

Well, after that, they were certain I was the right person, you see.

Then it was like, "OK, now what do I do?"

So then I thought, "Oh, great, now I finally found my brother,

"I've got to tell him his mother passed away seven years ago,"

so that was tough.

She said, "I'm very sorry to tell you,

"your mother passed away seven years ago,"

and I says, "Oh..." Cos she would have been a tremendous age, so...

You don't expect very good news on anything like that, you know.

But the next sentence was, "Good news for you -

"your mother had a daughter."

Well, that was like an atomic bomb going off, that was.

Everyone said...

I said, "Whoa, whoa... I've got a sister!"

Now sure John was her brother,

Diane felt confident she could finally reveal to him

she was his sister.

John said, "Hi, Diane, thanks very much for the news.

"What do I say after all this time?

"Do you know anyone that can tell me about her or, better still,

"Eileen's daughter? I would love to hear from her.

"PS. How did you come to hear about us? Love, John."

I wrote back and said, "Yes, I can tell you anything you want to know -

"I'm her daughter."

I was literally talking to me sister, yeah.

Fabulous.

Diane was now able to share with John

what little their mother had told her about her life.

Well, she had a very sad childhood.

Her father died when she was six, she really didn't remember him very much.

Her mother died when she was only 14.

Of course, the next phase of her life she never told me about.

But she did reveal a little of her life after the war.

First, she went to Paris. She was an artist on the Left Bank.

She got some beautiful Coco Chanel clothing.

She said she had inherited a little money

and that when the money ran out, she started her travels.

She told me that she would just earn enough money

to get to the next place she wanted to go

and she would go on a freighter ship.

They were very protective of her. She would eat only with the captain.

I know she went to Trinidad. That was her favourite island.

Then, she went down to French Guyana.

She didn't like it there. She said there were spiders big enough

to eat cats there, so she wasn't crazy about it!

So, she went to New York City and worked as a window dresser at Macy's.

Then she heard about New Orleans

and she'd heard it was a lot like Paris

so she wanted to go to New Orleans.

She lived in the French Quarter, I think she was probably a beatnik

and she met my dad, a real handsome Italian,

and they got married.

Seven years later, had me

and that's how it all started.

Of course, John wondered if she'd thought about him over the years

and I think she was thinking about him a lot.

She was just very young when our brother Paul passed away,

and I think, after losing her grandmother,

her father, her mother...

I think it was just too much.

I found a letter later.

It said, "When I get really scared or whatever, I run

"and then I regret it later." I think that's what happened -

I think she just ran and then just couldn't go back.

Nobody ever loses their children. I mean, if you walk out on anybody,

they don't stop existing. They know very well they still exist.

I think my mother put a very brave show on in front of D and everybody

but when she went to bed on her own,

I would say that thought...

She must have wondered.

Having found each other, in 2014,

Diane and her husband, Doug, made the 4,000-mile journey from America

to England to finally meet up with her newly found brother.

We're coming in to Birmingham.

Come here!

That was a truly magical moment. It was wonderful.

I can't fully describe it.

CHEERING

And then they threw me a big party that night

and we had quite the party. It was amazing.

Two dreams had come true.

No money in the world can buy it.

I tell you, it's most fabulous, fabulous, fabulous, yeah.

I'd like to thank everybody for turning up.

Exactly, you know.

To celebrate the arrival of two of the greatest people in the world.

These two here. My lovely sister, gorgeous.

I don't know what else to say!

Since then, John and Diane have continued to speak

every day over the internet.

Hello!

-My sweet, charming brother.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's fantastic, really, isn't it?

There's no other feeling like it, is there?

-Uh-uh, no, there isn't.

-No, no, no.

'We just have to see each other at least once a day.

'It was funny because our mom was the same way.'

She would say, "If I don't get to see you,

"you've got to at least call once a day,"

and we just always had to have that connection.

In one of their chats, Diane happened to mention

her mother's gold snake necklace she'd named Spike.

You'd just got it on, hadn't you? I said, "That's nice."

She had no idea of its significance.

And that's when you told me,

-"My nickname as a boy was Spike."

-Yeah, yeah.

And that came together because when Mom was dying,

she told me I had to wear Spike at least once

and she was very adamant about it

-and obviously, on her deathbed, she was thinking about you.

-Yeah.

It's still the saddest part about it. If only she had just told you...

I don't think that was the proper time for her to do it.

-I think she was struggling with it.

-Yeah, yeah.

And now you've got me.

-Now I got you. You'd better not be going anywhere.

-Yeah, yeah.

I hope so, not for yet a while anyway.

-No, not for a long while.

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's literally gone from being orphaned to having a family

and more importantly, the family that he's inherited love him.

That hole has been filled now with the love that he longed for...

Look at me...

..when he was younger and it's been absolutely fantastic.

-I recommend anyone.

-Yeah, anybody to do it, yeah. It's fabulous.

-Everyone's got to do it.

-Absolutely fabulous, yeah.

Paul Smith wanted to trace his dad, John,

who left home when he was 11 years old.

It was just a question of coming home one day from shopping with mother,

and father had upped and left

for whatever reason.

Nearly 50 years later,

Paul turned to the Salvation Army for help to find his dad

out of more than a possible 6,000 John Smiths.

Luckily enough, Paul had quite a lot of information,

which meant it was possible for us to be able to take on his enquiry.

He provided us with his dad's full name,

his dad's date of birth,

and also he knew the date of marriage to his mother.

If the Salvation Army managed to find his father,

they had a letter of introduction from Paul.

With the information Paul was able to provide us on his father,

we were able to try one of the avenues

which is available to us straightaway.

Luckily enough, they had come back to us

saying they had forwarded our letter to Paul's father.

Now Paul could only wait and see

if the John Smith believed to be his father would respond.

Because the length of time is so long, you just accept...

Whatever the result's going to be, well, that's the way it is.

Obviously I hoped he was still alive and well.

I was prepared for any news.

Once we had heard the letter had been forwarded,

within a couple of days,

we received a phone call from the father

informing us that he had received the letter

and was delighted that his son was looking for him.

You know, when you receive a phone call like that,

that the enquiree has received the letter

and that he's going to contact the relative,

it's just a special moment.

You're really pleased with what you've done

and that you've made that possible for them.

I couldn't believe it at first -

that they'd found someone so quickly

and that he lived relatively local,

and had been for the last 18 years.

Just a few miles away from Paul's house,

his father, John, heard from the son he'd last seen 46 years ago.

"Hello, John, this is Paul writing to you because I've been

"curious for some time now as to whether to make contact with you.

"At some point in the future, when you feel OK with the situation,

"I look forward to receiving your response.

"With warmest regards, Paul."

Which I thought was very nice.

Reconnected, Paul met up with his dad in early 2015.

They hadn't seen each other since 1969 when Paul was 11.

It was a strange sort of feeling

cos it was my son standing there in front of me after all this time.

I think it was mutual between us,

that it sort of gelled -

let's put it that way.

Quite quickly, considering the time.

They've since bonded over a shared love of classic cars.

-Hello, Paul.

-All right, John.

-How are we?

-All right, thanks.

-Nice to see you.

-Nice day today.

-Have a good trip over?

-Yeah, brilliant.

-Oh, good. Lovely.

-Right.

-Nice day for it.

-Yeah, we have.

Fingers crossed.

Right, OK, I'll take you round to a few of the old places.

Yeah, go back down memory lane.

That's it. THEY LAUGH

Today, John wants to try and help Paul understand

the circumstances behind his departure from the family

all those years ago.

First stop is the family home they all shared together

when Paul was a small boy.

My earliest memories are of this here.

-Yes, because you were that age, then.

-This is my earliest memories.

-I've got good memories of this street as a child.

-Yes.

You know, going up and down on my little trike

and it's quite nice to be back here all these years later.

Yeah.

While Paul was at home with his mother,

John was working on the buses.

It was shift work obviously and all that.

It caused a bit of a problem between your mum and myself

because I wasn't home to that degree.

-No, no.

-Yes.

-But I was earning more money...

-Right.

-..in that way,

so that's when we went and moved to Upminster.

Right, you were able to afford a bit better place, a bigger place.

A better place, a bigger place.

With a bigger house came bigger responsibilities for John.

Sadly, things seemed to go a bit pear-shaped,

became quite an atmosphere,

and I knew in my mind that

things were going the wrong way -

things weren't working out.

So I thought, in all fairness,

to both us as a couple and you children,

that it was better that I leave the marital home

and make a clean break of it -

and then I thought it would be

the best thing because things would have only got worse.

Yeah.

At the time, there was little concept

of shared parenting after a divorce.

Your mother, I feel sure, would have objected to me seeing you, you see.

Because of, most probably, me leaving home.

-So, I left well alone.

-Yeah.

Of course, all over the years,

you all often cropped up in my mind,

wondering how you were and all the rest of it.

-I just felt that was my way of seeing things...

-Yeah.

..whether it was considered right or wrong, in some people's eyes,

I, most probably, was the villain of the piece, you know.

-It's... You have to do what you've got to do at the time...

-Yeah...

..and that was the best thing for you.

..it seemed the right thing to do.

As far as I was concerned,

it happened and I was really too young to understand fully.

-I've got no bad feeling about it all.

-Yeah.

I've never had any resentment in any way.

Yeah, I appreciate your feelings

and I'm so pleased that we got together again.

-I know Mother wasn't the easiest person to get on with.

-No.

Reunited, father and son are now looking to the future.

Not knowing what had happened to my father

was the missing piece.

The father-and-son bond is definitely there.

It's just like two old friends meeting up

for the first time after 46 years.

I'm coming to my latter years now

and to know this has happened and...

I've got a family.