Latest news with #SimonProthero
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Emotional moment man, 58, finally finds birth mother who abandoned him as a baby - but she doesn't want to meet him
A man was left heartbroken after finally locating his birth mother who abandoned him as a newborn baby in 1966 - only for her not to be ready to meet him. Simon Prothero, 58, was discovered as a young baby outside a toilet block of a children's home in Neath, Wales. Up until recently, he had no information on why or who left him. Soon after he was found, he was adopted by loving parents and grew up in a village just ten miles away from the children's home. When he was nine, they told him about the details behind his adoption. Fortunately, Simon enjoyed a happy childhood with his late adoptive parents. But years later, his wife Helen encouraged him to apply to ITV's Long Lost Family: Born Without a Trace to help solve the mystery of his heritage. 'I don't know where I was born when I was born, what the circumstances were. I don't know who my mother is,' Simon said on the latest episode of the show, which aired on ITV yesterday at 9pm. In September last year, Helen tragically died from cancer. Knowing Helen's wishes, Simon employed the help of Long Lost Family's team and hosts Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell to continue his search for his birth family. DNA tracing meant that, despite Simon not having a paper trail, researchers managed to track down his birth mother, and Simon finally received the information about who his family are and where he came from. However, in an emotional turn of events, Simon's birth mother, who is now in her eighties and had him when she was young, unmarried, and on her own without family support, was still not ready for contact with Simon. At the start of the episode, Simon visited the children's home where he was found for the first time and reflected on his past. He said, 'I believe I was only a few hours old when I was found', he said, adding, 'Nobody's ever come forward.' 'I think my mother lived local; I don't think a stranger would have found this place. It's so much to take in. I want to know why she felt like she had to give me up.' The visit proved to be a poignant experience for Simon, who knew little about his beginnings, and up until recently, had never even seen a photograph of himself as a baby. 'I don't actually have any photographs of myself growing up as a baby, through my childhood, I haven't got anything,' he said. Though he knew little about his life as a newborn, Simon did enjoy a happy childhood with 'loads of lovely memories'. 'My [adoptive] parents were very loving. They were really good parents, I had a very good upbringing,' he recalled. When the researchers got to work looking for DNA connections, they also tried to find a photograph of Simon to allow him to see himself as a young baby for the first time. Luckily, the team located a newsreel of baby Simon from 1966, allowing him to see footage of himself around the time he was found. 'That was the first time I've ever seen myself as a baby. Amazing. It looked as if I was cared for. It's mind blowing to be honest,' he said after watching the clip. Back at the DNA search, a lead called Noel emerged, which connected Simon to a very large family group from north Wales. Noel agreed to do a DNA test, which led researchers to identify Simon's birth mother, who is alive and in her eighties. Researchers discovered that, when Simon was born, his birth mother was young, unmarried, on her own without family support, and the relationship with Simon's birth father had ended. Unlike Simon's previous assumptions, his birth mother isn't from near the children's home in Neath, but from North Wales. She couldn't recall why she left him in that area. When Long Lost Family contacted Simon's birth mother, her first reaction was sadly to question, 'Am I going to be in trouble for this?' The team reassured her that it wouldn't be the case. Davina informed Simon of the findings and that his birth mother is not ready for contact yet, but that the Long Lost Family hope that she might be in the future. There was no information found regarding his birth father. 'I can't quite get my head around it,' Simon said. He added, I was hoping for some sort of answers and a little bit more on my background.' 'I would like to meet her, but obviously, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. I can't take it in at all to be honest.' 'Hopefully we do get to meet, it would mean a lot,' Simon added. Though Simon's birth mother wasn't ready to meet him, other family members, including Noel, gladly welcomed him into the family. The Long Lost Family team didn't explain Simon's exact connection to Noel to protect his birth mother's identity. At the end of the episode, Simon met three generations of his birth family's relatives and exchanged addresses with them. Simon concluded, 'I've had a few answers, I'd like to have a few more, but it's been a good day,' he said.
Telegraph
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Is it really suitable to televise this heartbreaking moment?
A typically emotional journey of highs and hard-to-watch heartbreak kicked off a seventh series of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (ITV1), which set Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell on the identity trail of two more foundlings. One, Simon Prothero, was left in an outside toilet block in Neath. The other, Lisa Dyke, was found in a car park in another child's pram outside a health clinic. They came to the LLF team to find out what happened. Both of their paths to finding out who left them and why were copybook Long Lost Family, which is to say, extremely moving throughout. I clocked the LLF TTT (Long Lost Family Time to Tears) at 3 minutes and 41 seconds, and I was welling up not long afterwards. Even for this most lachrymose of series, this is a resplendent triumph. If that sounds soulless and cynical, remember that this is commercial television that, for its success, relies on fomenting, through DNA testing, hugely sensitive situations and then filming the outcome to transfer those emotions to the empathetic viewer. Of course, the aim is to help your Simons and your Lisas to find out 'who they are', in the common coinage. But that's not the only aim. Long Lost Family does tread very carefully, which is to its credit. Difficult news is broken to its subjects off-camera. The meetings with newfound family are filmed in good taste and with minimal American-style schmaltz. On the other hand, television is always manipulative. Is it fair, for example, in the case of Simon here, to find his birth mother and then have to tell him that she didn't want to be contacted? Might that not make Simon feel lost and unwanted a second time over? To these jaded eyes, it makes Long Lost Family slightly queezy viewing. The great DNA revolution, with home testing and the concomitant genealogy boom, has undoubtedly helped lots of people to find out who they are. But it comes with side effects, too. Lots of people have found things out that, on reflection, it might have been better not to have known, and that now can't be un-known. Whatever your position, it certainly shouldn't be television producers influencing these genuinely life-altering choices. What was particularly fascinating in this episode was Simon's admitting that it was watching old series of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace that inspired him to apply to the programme and dig up his own history in the first place. There's a cultural genealogy to television, too, one in which over time the things we watch affect how we behave. It's probably too early to tell whether the repeated posing of the question, 'Who do you think you are?' and the ability to find out on camera in the presence of Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, has been an unmitigated good. Simon would be worth asking, but we never got that far.
