![From Wall To Wall Productions LONG LOST FAMILY Monday 3rd July 2023 on ITV1 and ITVX Pictured: Frankie looks a picture of his half brother Paul . Frankie is the found paternal half brother of searcher Paul Connolly Episode One follows two very different stories of men searching for family and the truth about their beginnings. Paul Connolly had a tough childhood. He seldom saw the people who he thought were his family, and when he started looking for answers nearly 60 years later, he was shocked by what he discovered. Paul was born in East London in 1962, the youngest in a large Irish Catholic family. ???My mother put me out with the rubbish when I was 2 weeks old.??? Paul Paul tells us that his mother had a breakdown when he was a baby and put him out with the rubbish; a neighbour heard his cries and called social services. Paul spent his childhood in care, having periodic contact with his family. When he was 8, he was sent to St. Leonard???s Children???s Home in Hornchurch. It???s now known that children in this home experienced abuse. Paul slept under his bed for self-protection. After leaving the children???s home Paul says he narrowly avoided a life of crime. He was saved by joining a boxing club, which was a bit like a family. He developed an entrepreneurial streak and now runs a successful fitness and rehabilitation business. He???s a loving father of two sons. Recently, Paul decided to research his background. As he expected, his birth certificate listed his parents as Matthew and Mary Connolly. But when his sons gave him a DNA kit, he was shocked to find out that he was only half Irish. The other half of his ancestry was Maltese. When Paul was little, there was a newsagent around the corner from his mum???s place, run by a Maltese man called Pino. Paul???s brother would say to him ???you know Pino???s your dad, right???? Paul thought this was a joke at the time, but the DNA results years later made him wonder if it was in fact true and this inspired him to turn to Long Lost Family. Our specialist researchers widened the DNA analysis, putting Paul???s DNA onto three further databases. One yielded a match to Paul???s half-brother, Frankie. We wrote to Frankie, who told us that his father was a Maltese shop owner called Philip Psaila, also known as Pino, who had died many years ago. When Frankie meets Nicky Campbell, extraordinary parallels between his life and Paul???s emerge, along with their uncanny resemblance to one another. Frankie seldom saw his father, Pino, who died in 1968, and doesn???t remember him fondly. Frankie spent time in foster care and fell in with the wrong crowd before eventually getting his life on track. He now runs an IT business and is a semi-professional singer songwriter with two grown daughters and several grandchildren. Paul is gratified to learn for certain that Pino was his father. He???s amazed to hear he has a brother whose life was so similar to his own ??? and who lives in Essex only 14 miles away from him. When they meet for the first time, they find still more ways in which their lives have followed an eerily similar course. As Paul says, it???s ???like looking into a mirror. (C) WalltoWall For further information please contact Peter Gray Mob 07831460662 / peter.gray@itv.com This photograph is (C) *** and can only be reproduced for editorial purposes directly in connection with the programme or event mentioned herein. Once made available by ITV plc Picture Desk, this photograph can be reproduced once only up until the transmission [TX] date and no reproduction fee will be charged. Any subsequent usage may incur a fee. This photograph must not be manipulated [excluding basic cropping] in a manner which alters the visual appearance of the person photographed deemed detrimental or inappropriate by ITV plc Picture Desk. This photograph must not be syndicated to any other company, publication or website, or permanently archived, without the express written permission of ITV Picture Desk. Full Terms and conditions are available on the website www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures/terms](https://wp.inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SEI_162689287.jpg?crop=376px%2C117px%2C1611px%2C913px&resize=640%2C360)
Returning for its 13th series, last night’s episode of Long Lost Family followed two men seeking to connect with relatives they’d never met – par for the course for the show, life changing for its subjects.
Paul, a 60-year-old entrepreneur from Essex, wanted to learn about his father’s family after a surprising DNA test, while 54-year-old school site manager Shaun sought to understand why his biological parents had gone on to marry and have two children after he was given up for adoption.
The programme’s seasoned presenters, Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, lent safe hands to delicate proceedings – just as well, because Long Lost Family addressed some of life’s biggest questions. Where do I come from? Was I loved or abandoned? What makes me, me?
![From Wall To Wall Productions LONG LOST FAMILY Monday 3rd July 2023 on ITV1 and ITVX Pictured: Reunited with his birth mother searcher Shaun Lawrence hugs his Mum Eileen Episode One follows two very different stories of men searching for family and the truth about their beginnings. The second search is on behalf of a man who wants to find his entire birth family. Shaun Lawrence is a 54-year-old school site manager, former firefighter and father of two daughters. He grew up in Kent in the late ???60s and ???70s. He had a happy childhood, having been adopted when he was five months old. Yet Shaun still had burning questions about why he was given up and who his parents were. In his thirties he began to look for answers. He managed to find both his birth parents??? names, which enabled him to make a further, unexpected discovery: Digging deeper, Shaun discovered that his birth parents had two further children together: his full sisters, Michelle and Natalie. By the time Shaun came to Long Lost Family he knew the names of his entire birth family???but he couldn???t find them. We made a breakthrough when we discovered that Shaun???s birth parents divorced. When we searched under his mother Eileen???s new married name, we found her; she was still living in the UK, as were Shaun???s birth father, John, and both his sisters. Meeting with Eileen and her two daughters, Nicky Campbell learns how happy they are to have been found. Eileen (who has a rare neurological condition called PSP, which affects her speech and eyes) explains the circumstances at the time of Shaun???s birth. She was then 18 and working as a student nurse. At that time, being pregnant meant she had to leave the job. Her parents weren???t supportive, and she and John didn???t live together ??? and couldn???t get a flat with a baby. But Eileen looked after Shaun in a mother and baby home for six weeks after he was born. She felt hopeless and helpless when she gave him up. Now she can finally see him again. Shaun is relieved to hear from Davina that every member of his birth family is alive and wants to meet him. Although no longer married, John and Eileen meet Shaun together and their daughters join them. There are several apologies, but Shaun responds: (C) WalltoWall For further information please contact Peter Gray Mob 07831460662 / peter.gray@itv.com This photograph is (C) *** and can only be reproduced for editorial purposes directly in connection with the programme or event mentioned herein. Once made available by ITV plc Picture Desk, this photograph can be reproduced once only up until the transmission [TX] date and no reproduction fee will be charged. Any subsequent usage may incur a fee. This photograph must not be manipulated [excluding basic cropping] in a manner which alters the visual appearance of the person photographed deemed detrimental or inappropriate by ITV plc Picture Desk. This photograph must not be syndicated to any other company, publication or website, or permanently archived, without the express written permission of ITV Picture Desk. Full Terms and conditions are available on the website www.itv.com/presscentre/itvpictures/terms](https://wp.inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SEI_162689378.jpg?w=760)
Paul is now a happy and successful adult with two sons of his own, but his story began in the East End of London, where he was born to a large Irish Catholic family in the 60s. When he was just two weeks old, his mother “had some kind of breakdown and put me out with the rubbish”, he explained.
After being taken into care, Paul spent his childhood bouncing between children’s homes, suffering abuse at the notorious St Leonard’s in Hornchurch, Essex: “Most kids would have a teddy bear… my comfort was a kitchen knife with a wooden handle… I held on to that for dear life.”
He had largely left that difficult past behind, but Paul’s interest in his history was reignited when a recent home DNA test revealed Maltese ancestry and confirmed a decades-old suspicion about the identity of his biological father. “The minute I saw ‘half Maltese’, the first name that popped into my head was Pino,” he said. Although his father Philip Psaila – better known as Pino, who ran a local newsagents – had since died, the team uncovered three of Paul’s half-siblings, the children of Psaila and another Irish Catholic woman in the area.
When Paul met his newly discovered brother, Frankie, both were staggered by the degree of overlap in their lives; most amazing of all was the discovery that they had attended the same school in Dagenham – “same school, same time”, said Paul, incredulous. “I started out looking for my father and instead I found a brother.”
Like Paul and Frankie’s meeting, Shaun’s family reunion was also brimming with emotion. Hugging his son for the first time since he was an infant, Shaun’s elderly father apologised once – “forgive me for not standing up” – and then twice, choking back tears with a simpler plea: “Forgive me.”
Such crescendos of feeling were both difficult to watch and impossible to look away from; in seeing Shaun meet his biological parents, we were also watching him crumple back into the little boy who felt discarded by them, only to be reinvigorated by their enduring love: “To hear that I was loved and that you continued to think about me … to talk about me … meant so much, as if all of a sudden I mattered.” Cue lots of weeping from both those on screen and from me.
Long Lost Family dealt measuredly, empathetically and non-judgmentally with difficult themes from abuse and abandonment to teen pregnancy and the kind of regret that lasts a lifetime. The tried-and-tested format – two presenters, two subjects and a straightforward investigation culminating in revelation – might feel outdated, but its human appeal is eternal.
By offering viewers a seat at the most important table in someone’s life, Long Lost Family can never fail.
