PREVIEW: Long Lost Family (2021), ITV

The BAFTA award-winning documentary series returns to ITV for its tenth series as presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell reunite more family members with their missing loved ones.

With help from a team of trained intermediaries, DNA experts and investigators, Nicky and Davina find people that previously couldn’t be traced and answer questions that have haunted entire lives. And, at a time of international crisis which has seen many people experience separation from loved ones, these reunions have more poignancy than ever.

Episode 1

The series starts with two heart breaking stories of separation: a mother and father who, having fought in vain to get their son back through the courts, have lived with a lifetime of loss; and a son’s search for his birth mother, who disappeared from his life when he was a baby.

Phyllis and Kevin Haran contacted Long Lost Family after more than forty years searching for their first-born son. The couple fell in love as teenagers in Ireland in the 1970s and a couple of months into their relationship, Phyllis became pregnant.

Aware of the scandal this would cause within their Catholic community, they hatched a plan to run away to England to bring up their baby. But, in London, their landlady discovered they were keeping a baby in their flat and gave them less than 24 hours to get out. Homeless, jobless and desperate to put their baby’s interests first, they agreed through an agency to place their son in the care of a family, with the possibility of adoption if they couldn’t find their feet.

Long Lost Family returns Monday 18th January at 9pm on ITV.