Episode 3 Family Finders

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 you've come from?

..finding them can take a lifetime...

I might have a brother 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 them to say it has 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 do 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 that 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 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've just completed my life for me.

There are a wealth of organisations all over the UK that can help

reunite estranged families.

But not everyone decides to go with the experts.

Plenty of people become family finders themselves.

Today, we meet two sisters who are determined to uncover

the mystery of their mother's family and find out

if they have any long-lost relatives.

We had mum's birth certificate and two photographs

and that was all we had.

It was always a mystery.

And Allan, who turned detective himself, to unearth some

family secrets which have lain hidden for over 80 years.

If I've got to search till the end of my life,

I'll search till the end of my life, because somewhere out there,

I've got a brother walking round.

MUSIC PLAYS

76-year-old Wendy Cope was born in Surrey into a Britain

on the cusp of war.

Her sister, Nicky, came along just after the war ended.

Brought up by their parents, Pauline and William,

the sisters felt part of a close-knit family.

Best mum and dad in the world, I think. Everyone says that, but...

-They do.

-Yeah.

But their mother, Pauline, had had a different experience.

She had never known her real parents and was brought up by a kindly local

lady, Mrs Humphries, who was known in the community

for taking children in.

She was so special.

Everybody came to her for help and all sorts of things.

Pauline was one of a number of children looked after

by Mrs Humphries, who was unable to have a family of her own.

Mum, she took on very young. Mum was only two. She never was adopted.

She just looked after her forever.

The question of who Pauline's birth parents were

was always shrouded in mystery.

As we got older, we got curious and we used to say to mum,

"Can't you remember anything?"

"No," she used to say, "I don't know, I just don't know."

Although memories were hazy, there was one intriguing

nugget of information which had been passed down the generations.

Well, there was a family story. Mum, we knew, I knew, that mum had

a family on the stage. Vaudeville, sort of, artistes.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, music halls and

variety theatre were the main forms of entertainment for the masses.

MUSIC PLAYS

While the dream of fame and fortune came true for a lucky few,

most music hall performers faced a life of hard work and were

constantly on the road or performing,

which left little time for family.

And if Wendy and Nicola's grandparents were vaudeville

artists, as the family always believed, in the 1920s,

life would have got even tougher, as the theatres had to compete

with the rising popularity of cinema and radio.

This wasn't the only clues sisters Wendy and Nicky had to go on.

Their mother used to recount an early childhood memory that

left a lasting impression on her daughters.

Mum can remember looking out the window

and seeing this really posh car and a lady getting out in a fur coat

and she had a little boy with her.

Mum never did know what was said or what happened

and Mum always assumed that was her real mother.

As far as they know, that fleeting glimpse of the woman

in the posh car was the first and the last time that their mum

would ever see her real mother, their grandmother.

Mum never wanted to know. She was happy. She was well looked after.

She didn't want to change things.

Following the death of their mum last year,

the sisters decided to try to unearth the secrets of the past

and find out more about their ancestry.

It was interesting because they were on the stage and you think,

"Well, what sort of a life was it? And is Mum like them?"

-Mum was very dramatic.

-And so was Nicky.

-I was dramatic.

But with so little information, Wendy and Nicky

didn't know where to start.

We had Mum's birth certificate

and the other thing I had were two photographs.

And that was all we had.

It was always a mystery, yes, always a mystery.

And it stayed that way until a friend of theirs

set up her own family-finding business.

I said, "If she really wants a challenge,

"give her this to try."

Their friend, genealogist, Kirsten English, took on the case.

She started with their mother's birth certificate

and made an interesting discovery.

When I actually started looking at the birth certificate,

the first alarm bell was the address of birth.

In those days, it was still normal to be born at home, but this address

was actually the street address of Lambeth Infirmary in London

and if children were born in a hospital in those days,

it was sometimes an indication that there was some embarrassment

in the family.

When embarking on trying to find a family member,

looking at birth certificates is one of the best places to start.

You can search for birth, marriage and death certificates online.

These indexes stretch back to 1837, up to the present day,

and can be accessed for free.

New information is being released all the time.

New datasets, new directories,

so you may not find something this week, but in six months' time,

go back to the same website, you might find more information.

If you're still struggling to come up with any leads, there's

a wealth of genealogy research tools and websites at your fingertips.

But if what you're trying to find isn't always immediately

obvious, don't lose heart.

So, if you're really stuck, you can

also think about looking at the names of people in the family.

Sometimes, you might find that, for instance, a man called

John William was always known as William in the family,

because his father was John and his grandfather was John,

so sometimes people are known by their middle names.

Sometimes, they're known by nicknames

and by searching on those, you may find a record of the person

somewhere else and that might help you solve the problem.

For Wendy and Nicky, it was the birth certificate that set them

thinking about who their grandmother really was.

It listed their mother's parents as Sidney

and Lily Landsdowne, yet the name, Lily Landsdowne,

didn't appear anywhere else on any official records.

This lady's maiden name wasn't the correct name,

so it was starting then to look quite tricky.

So, Kirsten decided to turn her focus to the paternal line.

So, the other name on the birth certificate was Sidney Landsdowne,

so now it was time to look at him.

I had to go through several census records before I found him.

But in the end, I found Sidney Landsdowne

and it stated that he was a musical artist, so that's when I knew

I had the right man.

It was the breakthrough in the case that Kirsten had been waiting for.

And with no other leads, she began to investigate further into the

past of grandfather Sidney in the hope of turning up more information.

The census record also confirmed that he was born in London,

so then because I had his birth, I managed to find his parents and then

because I had his father's name, I was able to find his marriage.

Kirsten was hoping the marriage records would match

the names on the birth certificate, but they didn't.

Instead, another name came into the picture.

We've got Sidney G Landsdowne marrying someone by the maiden

name of Linwood in Lambeth. They married in 1926.

We were then able to search if they had any children

and let's see what we get.

George K Landsdowne, born in 1927, in Edmonton.

So, four years after Wendy and Nicola's mum Pauline was born,

her father, Sidney, had married a little lady called Louisa Linwood.

They'd had a son who had gone on to have children of his own.

This discovery meant Wendy and Nicky had cousins

they hadn't known existed, so they decided to try and make contact.

It's quite difficult to write, because I thought, well,

they might think I've gone mad or they don't want, you know,

they're not interested.

Later, with the letter sent, all Wendy could do now was wait.

And I thought, "Oh, gosh, he's written back already."

Allan Skeggs grew up in Bradford in the 1950s with his mother,

Doris, father, Walter, and older sisters Barbara and Christine.

My mum was the housewife, my dad was out at work

but he always made sure that we were comfortable

so we always had food on the table, like he said,

food on the table, clothes on my back and roof over my head.

Allan had a secure and happy childhood,

but it was a traditional upbringing.

His father, like many men of that time,

wasn't the demonstrative sort.

We all loved each other

but my mum showed it more than what my dad showed it.

If you did summat, he would say, "I'm proud of you,"

but there were never that love or that hug to say, like, "Well done."

As a young boy, Allan didn't share his father's tough exterior.

I was probably one of the softest kids that ever walked the earth.

My dad, one day, turned round to me and said,

"Come on, we're going down to rec."

And the rec was just a field down by where we lived

and he told me to look after myself.

He told me to put my fists up. He went, "That's all you need."

He said, "You never use these unless you've got to."

This life lesson would prove invaluable to Allan in young

-adulthood.

-I joined the Army at 18.

Saturday afternoon, three o'clock, walked across the road,

went in and joined the Army.

Allan was deployed to Northern Ireland at the height

of The Troubles.

The night before I went to Ireland, we had a beer in the pub

and the first time ever, he gave me a hug.

Out of all my life, that's probably only one of the few occasions

that I've ever seen my dad be emotional.

At the time, Allan put this rare display of affection

down to the fact that his father was all too familiar with

the brutal realities of the battlefield.

He told us that his family had all been killed in the war.

Growing up as kids, we never even thought about questioning

things like that.

But as an adult, Allan became ever more curious about his father's side

of the family and a couple of years ago decided to do some digging.

My initial motivation was to find my grandparents

and find their burial places so that I could go pay my respects.

Little did he know he was about to stumble across a family

secret which had lain untouched for the best part of 80 years.

Once I started getting into dad's side,

it was like a Miss Marple's mystery.

The first clue came when he searched for his grandmother's death record.

What I noticed on it, is that it said that she had died

in 1962 in Lewisham, which didn't correspond with what my dad

had always told us as kids growing up.

I thought to myself, well, if my dad has hidden that for so many years,

what else has he hidden underneath it?

Next, Allan obtained copies of his father's marriage records

and quickly, the plot thickens.

I noticed that he was married twice

but when I looked again closer, I noticed it were to my mum.

He married her in 1952 and then 1956.

Older relatives were able to give Allan some

explanation about this strange discovery.

Because the first marriage in 1952 wasn't a legal marriage,

because he was still married to somebody else.

It was just a complete shock, because he has already kept

quiet about his family and he's kept quiet about this now,

so now I had to go deeper into it, to find things.

To find out more about who his father had been married to, Allan

tapped into ancestry forums online but he didn't have much to go on,

just his father's name, Walter Skeggs.

And that Walter Skeggs had married a Wood.

Allan's father had been married before which,

until now, had been kept a secret.

With the surname, Wood, Allan was able to work out a little more

about his dad's first wife.

Went onto the computer and I put Skeggs and Wood in,

and it came up, the Wood came up, as Doris Irene.

Allan's father had once been married to another woman who,

coincidentally, was also called Doris, the same name as Allan's mum.

The next stage was to look and go, did they have any children?

If the couple had had children,

Allan would have other siblings he never knew existed.

Because of the date they got married, I thought,

within two or three years if they've got any children,

they're going to have them then, because dad is going to go to war.

So I basically put a three-year span and it came up with two names.

One of them, Brian and one of them, David.

The unfortunate thing with Brian, who was born in 1940,

is that he died when he was one-year-old and he died in 1941.

But as far as Allan could tell, the other child, David, survived.

I was just ecstatic about it, because it was going...

I might have a brother that's still living here.

I had David's name, his date of birth,

so now with them details, I could start my search to find him.

I started to basically contact all the David Skeggs'

which I knew had Wood as a mother and Skeggs as a father.

So, in that way, I had an elimination process, basically.

But none of them turned out to be the David he was looking for.

I always had that preparation really underneath to say, you know,

I might not find him but I'm not going to give up.

If I've got to search till the end of my life,

I'll search till the end of my life, because somewhere out there,

I've got a brother walking round.

Allan was running out of options,

so began to search through business records and it was here

he found a David Skeggs who he thought might just be the one.

I was more apprehensive with this one, because I'd had

so much bad luck calling the other ones and I thought,

well, am I going to hit another brick wall?

After trawling through all the possible David's,

could Allan have finally found the right man?

This voice at the other end went, "Is that Allan?"

In Surrey, Wendy Cope and her sister Nicky have been

trying to trace their maternal grandmother Lily Landsdowne.

They enlisted the help of a family finder,

Kirsten English, who could find no trace of Lily in historical records.

This lady's maiden name wasn't the correct name

so it was starting, then, to look quite tricky.

Drawing a blank, Kirsten then switched her search

to their grandfather, Sidney Landsdowne,

who it turned out had gone on to have a second child

who would be Wendy and Nicky's uncle.

Armed with this information, Kirsten was able to track down his daughter,

Helen - Wendy and Nicky's cousin.

We had a letter come through the door and when I read it,

it got me quite excited, actually, because it just said,

I hope you don't mind me contacting you, erm, we've been researching

our family and actually, I think we have a shared grandfather.

I got excited by it, actually. I was surprised.

Suddenly, we've got this whole new strain of family, which was

really exciting.

I wrote that letter and then I had a reply from Helen and I was

quite excited and I thought, "Oh, gosh, she's written back already."

But there was more to come.

Helen was able to shed some light on the mysterious Lily Landsdowne.

We knew that my grandmother's stage name was Lily Landsdowne

and I have a fantastic photograph.

I didn't want to state categorically we definitely had the same

grandmother, because I could well have been wrong.

Helen believed that Lily Landsdowne could be

the stage name of Louisa Linwood.

If she was right, Helen, Wendy and Nicky would share not only

a grandfather but also the same grandmother, too.

I remember e-mailing her and she was a little unsure to begin with.

But final confirmation came when the cousins swapped photographs.

In fact, there was handwriting on a photograph that she had

and a photograph that I have and the handwriting is the same.

We could see that this "love, Lily" was exactly the same writing

-and so that was how we knew...

-That it was.

-..that this was Louisa.

-With the many names.

-Yes.

The riddle was solved.

Louisa Linwood and Lily Landsdowne were the same person.

Louisa had used her stage name, Lily, on Wendy and Nicky's mother's

birth certificate and this is what had caused so much confusion.

And thanks to the message written all those years ago,

the family had been able to piece their history together.

-She's beautiful, isn't she?

-Yeah.

Strange, though, she had straight hair, like Mum's, didn't she?

-Yeah, definitely.

-Well, like mine, as well.

-Yeah.

Louise's son - Helen's father, Kenneth -

was the uncle the sisters never knew they had.

Although, before he died,

Kenneth had mentioned their mother, Pauline, to his family.

He told us he had an older sister,

he didn't say anything about the circumstances.

I actually wonder if he knew anything about the circumstances.

It could have been that he wasn't told anything.

But why Louisa, AKA Lily, had left her first child,

Wendy and Nicola's mother, Pauline,

to be brought up by someone else remains a mystery.

One thing Helen remembers are the family tales

of her grandmother's theatrical past.

She used to perform, um, I think mainly in London, on the stage,

um, with my grandfather.

And there's an awful lot there that tells you all about

all the things that they were in.

-So that's quite a good one.

-Happy days.

Yeah, and that's with them both in that one.

-Sid and Lily, they were...

-Yeah.

-She looks as though...

-She was the star there.

-Yeah.

But Helen's own memories of Louisa are more recent.

I do have very fond memories of my grandmother.

I didn't know her as well as I'd have liked.

She had quite advanced Parkinson's,

so she was housebound.

So all of our visits were based around the home.

She was... She was just very sweet and my dad loved her very much.

Today, the three cousins are meeting up.

I'm really looking forward to it, I'm excited!

-I bet you are!

-I think we'll have to crack the old champagne open!

Yeah, it's very, very exciting.

We've got a small family,

and suddenly we've got family on my father's side

which we've never had before.

In honour of their family heritage,

the ladies are meeting in

the theatrical heartland of Covent Garden.

It's a long time since we've been up here together.

I tell you what, I haven't been up here since I was 18.

-Lovely atmosphere, though, isn't it?

-It is, isn't it, actually? Yeah.

We couldn't have had a better place, really.

The thing that I'm looking forward to most today is

to talk about what she's been doing with her life,

what we've been doing, and just, you know, getting a bond.

-Excited now.

-Yeah, it is, isn't it, eh?

-Hello!

-Hello!

-It's lovely to meet you.

-And you!

-Oh, wow!

-Lovely to meet you!

-Yeah, absolutely!

Goodness!

-I can't believe it.

-I know!

Oh, it's amazing.

-It's surreal, isn't it?

-It is.

-It's surreal.

-Yeah.

-I just can't...take it in.

-I've got some photos for you to see.

-We're terrible.

Have you? Yeah, we've got some as well, haven't we?

-Some ones that you haven't seen, yeah.

-Oh, wonderful!

And the newly-discovered cousins are eager to do some catching up

on all the lost years.

But I'm really struck at how similar you two are.

-You really look alike, don't you?

-Do we?

-Yes!

-Well, people say, don't they?

-They do say, but you never see it yourself, do you?

-No.

-I can see Mum when I look in a mirror.

-Oh, really? How lovely.

-I'm turning into her.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Quickly, conversation turns to their grandmother,

the elusive Lily Lansdowne,

who's real name was Louisa Linwood.

-So, that first one...

-Oh, yeah, see,

now that looks like Mum when she was younger, doesn't it?

-When she was young.

-Yeah.

-Does it?

-Yeah.

-The hair.

-The hair, because Mum had very straight hair.

-Yeah.

-And the nose.

-Well, we've all got the nose.

-We've all got the nose!

-But she looks beautiful, doesn't she?

-Oh, yes.

-And then that one.

-That's nice.

-Yeah.

-I like that one.

-It's nice, isn't it?

-It is.

Although, I wondered if these were headshots for getting work,

-because the ones you've got...

-Yes.

-..she seems to be dressed up, doesn't she?

-Yes. Yeah.

And this one... You might find this fascinating. That's her.

It is fascinating, because she doesn't look...

-No. She looks quite plain there, doesn't she?

-Yeah, she does.

Yeah. And that's, um, obviously, that's her parents.

-Imagine having all those children!

-I know.

And I think that is, um...

-Her mum, is it, her mother?

-Yeah.

-Her mother, yeah.

Her mum and dad when they were younger.

-So, great-great grandparents there.

-Yes.

-There you go.

-They're yours.

-I know, so this is all your family.

-I know!

-It's fantastic, isn't it?

-It is, it's amazing.

And since Helen was first contacted by Wendy,

she's made another remarkable discovery

amongst her own family heirlooms.

But this, as well, when you look at these cards,

cos my mum did the family research, and if you look there...

-She's got...

-..it lists your mum.

Helen's dad, George Kenneth, and Wendy and Nicola's mother, Pauline,

are both listed as the children of Louisa Linwood.

-Oh, yes.

-And, you can see, they don't know exactly when...

-BOTH:

-When she was born.

-I thought, well, there we are.

-There we are. It's there.

-I know.

That was how we really knew, wasn't it? That bit of paper.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

Now they have found each other,

the cousins are keen to find out if they share any family traits.

One of the things I'm really interested in

is the similarities between my dad and your mum.

She was quite, um... Well, she was very outgoing, really, wasn't she?

Mum was, yeah. And she sang all the time.

-Did she?

-Always singing, wasn't she? Yeah.

-So, did she ever do it...

-No.

-No, not professionally, no.

She would just be sitting there and she'd just break into a song.

-Wow.

-So it's there, isn't it?

-Yes, I know.

-We didn't get it.

-No, I didn't, either.

-You can't sing, either?

-I can't sing.

-We'd have been a dead loss then!

None of us can sing! Where did that go?

Your uncle, my dad, he actually sang with the Royal Opera Company chorus.

-Did he?

-Did he?

We could pop along to the Opera House

and maybe I could show you that.

-It's close, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's very close here, isn't it?

-I know.

It was very important to him, actually.

-Yeah, it would be lovely.

-He was very proud of it.

Some of the world's most famous opera singers

have performed at the Royal Opera House.

And it was here that Helen's dad - Wendy and Nicky's uncle, Kenneth -

was on stage in the early 1970s.

So it turns out their grandfather,

grandmother and also their uncle were all stage performers.

-Wow!

-Wow, yes.

-There we are. The Royal Opera House.

-It's a pretty spectacular building, isn't it?

-It is.

-Yeah.

-Definitely is.

And even more amazing that my father, your uncle, performed here.

And here he is next to the leading lady...

-Oh, wow!

-Yes!

-..on the front of an album, yeah.

-Cor!

-I know, he looks amazing, doesn't he?

-He does.

-I know.

-He was very proud of it.

-I bet he was.

-Yeah, so were we.

-Here's one of him as an older guy.

-Older, but all right, yeah.

-Lovely face.

-Oh, yes.

-Bless him. Bless his heart.

-He does look lovely, doesn't he?

-Yeah.

-Was that his wedding?

-Yeah.

-I can see Mum there.

It's the smile, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, I can definitely see that smile there.

The cousins have led separate lives until now,

but their strong connection is undeniable.

It's been really good, and it's odd, because there...

There hasn't been anything missing in our families.

Neither of us have felt that there's anything missing,

but there is something more than just...friendship.

And I can't really tell you what that is,

but it's, um, it's something really quite nice.

We certainly have the same sense of humour.

It's been really, really good fun.

I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

It has been an absolutely fantastic day.

Helen is just so like us,

you'd think we would have known each other for years.

I know we're going to see a lot more of each other

and become very, very close.

It's been fantastic.

We've got an ending now,

and it is we know some of them who we've come from.

And I am really pleased that I tried to do this now.

In Essex, Allan Skeggs remembers a happy childhood,

growing up with his mother, father and two sisters.

But a trawl through his family history has uncovered a big secret.

Now Allan is searching for a half-brother he never knew he had.

After several cases of mistaken identity,

Allan found a man called David Skeggs

and he sent him a letter.

That weekend, was just... It were probably the longest weekend

that I've ever had in my life.

75 miles away, the letter received an uncertain response.

We sat around the table and we just said,

"What on earth is this...person on about? He says he's related.

"Could he be, or possibly?"

I was just sceptical about a lot of things in my life, and I thought,

"Well, he's got it wrong, anyway, whatever it is."

I were pacing up and down. I kept looking at my phone,

I kept looking at my e-mails,

just in case there was something there that I'd missed.

On the Monday, it were my day off from work

and I were at home, and the phone rang.

So I answered it,

and this voice on the other end went,

"Is that Allan?" I'm like, "Yeah."

He went, "David?"

And I went, "Yeah...

"Yeah, it's me speaking."

-You know...

-LAUGHTER

And then, um...

He said, um, "I'm your brother."

And he went, "So you're my brother?" And I'm like, "Yeah."

And from then on we just started talking

like we'd known each other for ages.

Allan had found the half-brother he never knew he had,

although David had never known their father.

What I remember about my father is absolutely zero.

Nothing at all.

I was a war baby.

Within the year I was born, my father had left.

David and another half-brother were left with their mother, Doris,

and, as David remembers, Doris met another man soon after.

She was with a Mr Broomfield until I was up to about five,

and then she left.

David was left without a mum or dad to care for him.

He found himself on the streets of London.

When I was five and my brother would have then been ten -

he was five years older than me -

and, um...

..we went on the streets for a while.

I think things were very tight for everybody,

and we done a lot of fending for ourselves.

And then we were rounded up, as it were, by the police,

and they felt we were in need of care and protection,

so we were put in care.

David was sent to a children's home on the outskirts of London.

There were huge numbers of children left as orphans

in the years immediately after the Second World War,

and the chaos of post-war Britain

means that exact figures are hard to come by.

The post-war period marked a turning point

in the history of childcare in the UK,

with the establishment of the first Children's Committee,

and a realisation that children had to have more rights in care.

One result of this was that children's officers

were appointed to help the most vulnerable in society,

those who didn't have a parent to care for them.

This, in turn, led to what we now know as Child Social Services.

This new approach was designed to scoop up children like David,

who, at five years old, was homeless and living on the streets.

David went to live in foster care.

She was a very nice lady, a Yorkshire woman, and she

had the dreaded task of looking after me for a couple of years.

After leaving foster care,

David wanted to make his own way in the world.

I left there and ran my own life, which I wasn't very good at doing.

David mixed with the wrong crowd and ended up in Borstal,

and later spent a short spell in prison.

Having a dad I didn't know, which was really quite...

Would have been handy if I'd have known one,

cos I do, my heart, I do know, having a dad that looks...

That would have... was up for me,

I would have been up for that.

100%.

But with no-one else to look out for him,

David had to rely on himself.

When I was 28, I was, perhaps, looking at myself in life

and seeing I weren't really getting anywhere.

I realised then I'll need to make the changes.

I started to get substance in my life, really.

And, later, David met his wife.

I met Georgina, just a naturally lovely, kind-hearted person.

Really lovely.

The flame of my life!

It was his wife who encouraged David

to make that all-important call to Allan.

And not long after they spoke, they met in person.

I was stood at the door and he pulled up,

and that were it. He was just full of smiles

and he were up. He came up the steps

and he just looked, and it were...

We just gave the biggest hug, and went,

"All right, big brother?"

And he went, "All right, little brother?"

We had a really good laugh together.

And that's good. It's a terrific start

because he's got a good sense of humour and he's a sincere man.

And it were literally just like we'd known each other years and years.

What a great start.

The brothers are making up for the 60 years they've missed,

and are now slowly building a relationship.

For David, it's a chance to piece together his own history.

I've got an interest in my brother,

because he's going to put flesh on the bones of my dad.

And I'll only get to know my dad through him.

I won't... I cannot learn it from no-one else.

So he is my... He is my link. He's the link to my dad.

It's only now the men feel ready to talk in depth about their father.

And today, Allan's invited David to his home in Chingford.

I've got that old, like, tight stomach.

It's like that knot there, just waiting.

It's a lot of excitement and it's a lot of,

I don't know, it's a lot of memories, as well, which...

I hope I can put it today, I hope I can put it so he'll understand

really what Dad were like.

I think it'll bring us closer.

It'd be nice to get to the substance of things, really,

talk about things that move us in our lives

and how we're going or where we're hoping to,

so that's quite nice.

I'm quite looking forward to it.

Hiya, lad!

-Good to see you, mate.

-Are you good?

Great, mate, great. Come in, you're soaking.

And Alan's got the family snaps ready to show David.

Here's a good one. That's...

That's me and our Barbara.

We're about seven-year-old there.

Do you know what tickles me is at that time, all got these shorts on.

-All the shorts.

-Little short trousers. Anyway.

Alan's got something special up his sleeve -

a photo of their father

that David will be seeing for the very first time.

-That's Dad.

-Unbelievable.

He looks about seven there.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, so this is my grandma and grandad that we both never knew.

Yeah.

Here's when he was a dad. That's a bit of a closer one.

-Sharp-dressed man.

-Yes, he was always impeccable.

He always made sure that we went out and we went out smart.

And then, that's another one.

Lovely, really brilliant.

In my heart, I'd really love to know him, but you...

I will get to know him through you.

-How much of Dad do you remember?

-None.

-None.

-Nothing, at all.

Because David has no memory of his father

he wants to learn all he can from Alan.

-Was it a happy household?

-We knew that he loved us,

but we never, we never got that odd cuddle, because we never...

He never went and took us down to the park,

it were a case of, we'll go to speak to my mum first.

There's not that closeness, then?

No, there were never, like, an hug.

The only hug I ever, ever got off him what I can remember

was that night before I left for Northern Ireland

and he said to me, "I don't want to lose another son."

Now, you see, at that stage, because I didn't know any of this,

so I naturally thought that that

-he was remembering his mates from the war.

-Yes.

But Alan now believes David could have been the other son

his father was referring to.

When I think of a father figure, I want... I want...

-I want someone to care.

-Yeah.

And that's what you feel that you've missed out on.

It must have been so hard for you.

Alan has shared his childhood and memories of their father

and now it's David's turn to take his half brother

for a trip down his memory lane.

We're going to be going over to the West Norwood area,

to some...

Basically, me, I spent, sort of, about three years in these homes

and it'll just be good to see if the homes are still there,

and from there, go to the area, Camberwell area,

where I actually was brought up, as well.

I'm looking forward to that.

You'll be able to tell me all about it when we get up there.

Yeah, I can do that.

This is David's first time in the area since he was 11 years old

and, despite a whole lot of change, he's quick to recognise

old landmarks.

Elder Road.

Got it. That is it, that is Elder Road. Yes.

It's interesting.

David spent many years of his childhood in care

and it seems he may have outlived

at least one of the old children's homes.

It's been totally redeveloped.

To help David piece it all together, they've brought along an old photo.

So, where would this have been, if we're standing here now?

Well, I think that definitely an entrance down here,

-where them children are down there.

-Yeah.

And there's an entrance up there but there was ways in,

but they were governed, you couldn't just,

like, there was fencing like this all the way around it, everywhere.

Right, when you were in there, what did...

Did you get much freedom or...?

Well, I created my own really.

I think it's like everything else. You're under the auspices

of people that are trained to look after kids, they're not...

-Yeah.

-You know. But I mean, I used to leave,

I used to go and ride out and they'd have to come and find me.

It turns out that what David and Alan are looking for

may be just around the corner.

Now, I bet that is part of the original building.

Yes, look at this here, look. I've just seen to this here.

-And the past comes flooding back.

-They were big.

Do you know, like, you have bedroom dormitories.

I mean, 30 people in a dormitory. I remember the numbers.

That's a whole lot of flipping...

And there was dormitory after dormitories in the places.

And they all spread back inside there. Football fields.

We haven't touched on it, there was football fields,

playing fields, talk about memory lane.

I mean, to re-stir a kid's...

I mean, I left there when I was about, well, ten, 11.

It wasn't unhappy for me.

Everyone is, "Oh, poor kid." I flipping loved it.

I was with other children, that's good stuff, isn't it?

That's it, I mean, you look at and you go, you know, it's not a nice...

..place to be when you haven't got parents.

-It brings back memories, but not bad memories.

-No, nothing bad.

Nothing bad here, at all.

But prior to that, I was living in the Camberwell area.

And...

I think we'll go see if we can go and stir up

-a few memories down there, shall we?

-Yeah, let's go that way.

While they are in the area, David wants to show his little brother

one other old haunt that he remembers fondly.

And seeing as we're here, we're going to not leave this area

without having the business -

and that's the jellied eels and pie and liquor,

so if you'd like to come with me, I'll show you. Away, we go.

That is the bee's knees, I tell you.

This gravy's beautiful.

Anyway, it's been an exceptional day.

We just had a trip down memory lane and it's all so refreshing.

I found it refreshing, as well, to...

It's new things and new relationships,

new...

Everything is new. It's very good. Really enjoyed it.

I'd say the old man would absolutely have loved this.

He absolutely would. You wouldn't get him out of here.

You wouldn't get him out,

he'd have, like, three or four helpings of that.

I tell you what, if my dad were here now

and he'd seen us here,

he'd, like, I think...

that'd be probably one of the times that you'd see my dad cry.

-It was good, wasn't it?

-This is the first of many.

You got me hooked.

For Alan, today's been a chance to get a glimpse

of David's tough childhood.

For David, an opportunity to find out more

about the father he never knew.

The past is...

Not dead any more, it's alive,

and I think that, um...

..for me, it's a, kind of, a form of getting to know somebody.

It's such a good thing, even though they are not with us.

It's been absolutely brilliant.

I've learned so much more now about David and the life that he's had.

He's got me into the pie and mash now, so that's it.

THEY LAUGH