A man who was abandoned in a pram as a three-month-old baby has returned to the street where he was discovered by his adoptive parents during the search for his birth mother on Long Lost Family.
ITV’s popular documentary series returns this evening at 9pm and shows John Hacking, a quarry worker from Buxton, trying to find the woman who left him as a baby 57 years ago.
John was discovered by his adoptive parents outside their flat in the rain before growing up in a farmhouse in rural Derbyshire.
Sadly his adoptive mother died when he was young and he grew up with his adoptive grandmother largely looking after him – but always longed to discover his birth parent after being told he was adopted at age 13.
In emotional scenes airing tonight, John is reunited with his birth mother Maureen Jobson, 77, from Kent, who reveals how she felt forced to leave her son on the doorstep of his adoptive parents’ home because of the ‘hovel’ she was living in at the time.
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A man who was abandoned in a pram as a three-month-old baby has returned to the street where he was discovered by his adoptive parents during the search for his birth mother on Long Lost Family (pictured)
ITV’s popular documentary series returns this evening at 9pm and shows John Hacking (pictured), a quarry worker from Buxton, trying to find the woman who left him as a baby 57 years ago
John spent decades trying to track down his birth mother, using phone books and libraries, after being told her name was Maureen Clifford before she disappeared without a trace.
The Long Lost Family team eventually find Maureen, now Mrs Jobson, living in Sheerness, Kent.
She has recently been widowed, is twice-married and never had another child, believing it to be punishment for giving John up.
Co-host Nicky Campbell visits Maureen and asks whether she really left her son in a pram, to which she admits she did – but insists she never just abandoned him.
She recalls how she’d made her neighbours, John’s adoptive parents, godparents to her firstborn, and alleges that they told her that they would look after her son if a time came when she felt she couldn’t.
John (pictured as a child) was discovered by his adoptive parents outside their flat in the rain before growing up in a farmhouse in rural Derbyshire
Sadly John’s (pictured) adoptive mother died when he was young and he grew up with his adoptive grandmother largely looking after him – but always longed to discover his birth parent after being told he was adopted at age 13
In emotional scenes airing tonight, John is reunited with his birth mother Maureen Jobson (pictured), 77, from Kent, who reveals how she felt forced to leave her son on the doorstep of his adoptive parents’ home because of the ‘hovel’ she was living in at the time
‘I was living in this room. It was just a little square and it was a hovel,’ she explains. ‘It was disgusting, that place. And I was desperate.’
Having had a bad experience growing up in care and fearing the authorities would take her son away, Maureen decided to give her baby away to her neighbours.
She says: ‘I knew if the authorities came, they only had to look at the place I was living in [and] they would have took him.
‘And I wasn’t having that because then he would have been stuck in a home. And there’s one thing that I didn’t want, him going into a home.’
But instead of ringing the bell to hand him over, she claims she fled the scene as she found it ‘too emotional’.
The pair (pictured) were reunited in a pub near Maureen’s home in November, with the emotional scenes showing the duo hugging one another
Speaking about being reunited with her son, Maureen says: ‘I have been looking forward to something like this for such a long time. I always imagined I would open the door and there would be a young man standing there and saying, “Do you know who I am?”‘
In tearful scenes, John says: ‘It’s a weight off my shoulders, all these years of trying to find my mother and it’s finally happened. I feel my life is complete now. A lot of people think I am a lot calmer, more relaxed and more happy now too. Dreams do come true.’
The pair were reunited in a pub near Maureen’s home in November, with the emotional scenes showing the duo hugging one another.
Reunited, the mother says: ‘I’ve never forgotten you, darling, never. I didn’t want to hand you over, but it was a matter of having to.
‘I’ve got a son,’ she adds. ‘That’s the most important thing in my life. I’ve got everything to live for now.’