Long Lost Family, review: KT Tunstall's moving reunion wasn't even the most heartwarming thing in this episode
The headline act on Long Lost Family (ITV) was its first ever famous searcher, Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, who wanted to locate her birth father John. Growing up, Tunstall’s looks and musicality contrasted with her adoptive family’s. She’d tracked down her birth mother 20 years ago but never found her father. Would meeting John complete the jigsaw of her identity?
Sadly, her worst fears were realised: John had died in 2002. However, he had had two more daughters, meaning that Tunstall had two half-sisters who could tell her about the father she never knew. Sweetly, Siobhan and Lesley-Anne were also genuine fans of Tunstall’s music, never suspecting they were related.
When the trio finally met, they told a delighted Tunstall how her father was a popular publican who loved to regale regulars with song and carried a photo of her as a baby in his wallet. She had his eyes and dimples, too. A cockle-warming story, although the celebrity twist mainly served to make this show even more like Who Do You Think You Are? than usual.
In fact, Tunstall’s story had less emotional heft than the episode’s “civilian” one. Siblings Simon and Carole grew up apart after their mother Sylvia walked out during the Sixties. They wanted to know why.
Initially unable to find an address for Sylvia, they anticipated sad news. However, it turned out she was alive, well and living on a canal boat. Sylvia explained how she’d struggled when her marriage broke down, leaving her penniless and homeless.
Against a backdrop of prejudice towards single mothers, social services persuaded her to give up her children. Sylvia tearfully admitted that she never imagined this day would come. “I thought they’d never forgive me,” she sobbed. “I always had two empty spaces in my heart.” When Simon and Carole fell into her arms, she vowed to never let them go again.
Presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell oversaw the reunions with quiet class, issuing hugs when lips wobbled. It’s a measure of this show’s power that 4,000 people each year contact the production team, asking for help finding missing family members or answers to questions that have haunted entire lives.