Life

TV review: Can there always be a fairytale ending for Long Lost families reunited?

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next catches up with some of the most compelling stories featured previously to see how families have fared since meeting one another. Picture by ITV
Long Lost Family: What Happened Next catches up with some of the most compelling stories featured previously to see how families have fared since meeting one another. Picture by ITV Long Lost Family: What Happened Next catches up with some of the most compelling stories featured previously to see how families have fared since meeting one another. Picture by ITV

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next, ITV, Tuesday at 9pm

Over the last six years, Long Lost Family has put more than 200 people back in touch with their estranged relatives following decades apart.

Long Lost Family: What Happened Next re-visits those who featured on the show previously to discover - you guessed it - what happened next. And trust me, it's emotional.

This spin-off show catches up with some of the most compelling stories featured to see how families have fared since meeting one another.

Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell return to tell the story of two sets of siblings separated by extraordinary circumstances, including a brother and sister who, after being brought together, unearth a new family secret and another search.

What is clear is the reunion is just the beginning, but how easy is it to build a relationship after a lifetime apart? Have they stayed in touch, have they developed any sort of relationship? Those questions are all answered.

It begins with a lovely gentleman Ron, an emotional man. Just showing an old black and white photograph of him as a child, pictured sitting on a rocking horse with his sister Christine with their mother, has him welling up.

Born out of wedlock in the Welsh valleys and brought up by their grandparents, Ron remained in Wales while Christine was put up for adoption.

In the last series, they were reunited after 65 years apart, but this latest episode looks at how their lives have moved on since and there are wonderful scenes showing them making up for lost time, becoming part of each other's lives and keeping in touch despite Christine living in New Zealand.

If that's not emotional enough - there's no time to put the tissues away - it's revealed the siblings have two more half-siblings to the same mother.

Next thing, Nicky Campbell is knocking on the door of John and Noreen, who also ended up on the other side of the world in Australia and New Zealand.

What feelings of love and joy can be felt when all four siblings meet for the first time, those long hugs for each other are heart-warming and special.

The episode made me think of a man I interviewed recently who is still searching for his birth mother.

Patrick McGowan (72) was sent from Belfast to Australia under the Child Migrants Programme to start a new life. But he keeps returning to Northern Ireland in the hope that one day he will be able to track her down.

How unbearably difficult would it be living your whole life knowing that your mother could be out there?

Just like Cliff and Sue, who met for the first time of the original programme after separate searches for their mothers revealed they were looking for the same woman.

Cliff has just one thing to remind him of his mother, a letter she wrote to him with the last line that reads: 'God bless you and send you a happy life. Your mother'.

But he hasn't had a happy life as he continues his search for her.

While the episode yields success for Cliff and Sue when it's revealed their mother has been found, the harsh reality is she doesn't want to know them. She has made a new life and doesn't want to meet the two children she gave birth to. It is hard watching.

You wouldn't be normal if you didn't shed a tear watching this show, whether it's tears of delight or sadness.

While the programme may connect relatives, often from across the other side of the world, it doesn't always have a fairytale ending, but how wonderful that sometimes people can finally meet those they thought were lost forever.