Family Affairs

I have been listening to the song 'Family Affair' this week as my son Jamie has been working on it. Coincidentally I had booked tickets to go to a talk on the making of 'Long Lost Family'at Sheffield Doc Fest with my daughter. She had introduced me to the ITV programme a couple of series ago and it has become a favourite. It could be voyeuristic, it can be sentimental, but there is always a sense of authenticity and compassion in the way it is filmed and edited. I knew people who made TV programmes when I was younger and I know I can be cynical about what we see on screen and how that story is managed. I had read Nicky Campbell's book about his own adoption and I had seen both Nicky and Davina MacCall on 'Who Do You Think You Are?'I was prepared to accept them as presenters of this particular programme based on that insight into their own experiences. It was fascinating to hear about the genesis of the series and the approach the producers take. There are social workers and adoption experts involved. It is ethical and responsible in its approach to those involved. Some of them were there at the talk at the Crucible, by arrangement and also in the audience. It's a life changing programme. We all know families are complicated and there can't always be happy endings, but what we see in the programmes and the individuals they film is the relief of finding out the answers to questions that have haunted a lifetime. Neither Davina nor Nicky share their own experiences and I often wonder if viewers realise why they were chosen as presenters. There's another aspect that always interests me. The social history of the times is there in the stories but it isn't explored. I am of the generation who had the benefit of an Abortion Act, Family Planning Clinics and the pill. But I was very aware of the experiences of people not many years older than me. Even with new attitudes towards sex and the single woman, contraception and ultimately single parenthood, it was never easy or straightforward. If you found yourself pregnant you could get married, trying to hide the pregnancy and the 'early' baby. Within my social circle I have known women who had babies adopted. I'm sure many more had terminations. One work colleague found out that the woman he thought was his older sister was in fact his mother. It happened to Eric Clapton too. I had friends who had a baby at 16, stayed boyfriend and girlfriend, but she lived at home with her parents. If parents did support their daughter as an unmarried mother it was often support mixed with shame and disapproval. We live in such different times. Pregnancy was confirmed by a doctor, with a consultation. Over the counter sensitive pregnancy testing kits weren't available. Pregnancy was hidden, denied, ignored until there was an inevitable outcome. There's been a similar story on Coronation Street recently. Many of the stories on the programme involve women a few years older than me who gave up babies for adoption because they really believed that was the best thing for them, that they had no economic choice, at great emotional cost to themselves. Their reunions with their now grown up babies are some of the most moving stories in the series. But there are lost siblings, absent fathers, even reunited twins. All that fear of being found out becomes a desperate longing to know. I wonder how the stories will develop as we move into the next generation, who had different choices about giving birth and bringing up their babies. I imagine it is going to be more about missing fathers and the role of social media in tracking people down. My younger son found some of his half siblings by chance because of a YouTube post featuring his father, who had left when he was two, but who had kept in occasional contact. It's an intriguing television programme and it was reassuring to see the care with which it is made. If you haven't discovered it, it's on tonight at 9pm. Have the tissues to hand. It's a powerful shared emotional experience.