Monday's episode of Long Lost Families was an emotional one as a man broke down in tears at his biological father's grave after his mother refused to share any details about him.
73-year-old James, who is originally from Leeds but now lives in Carcassonne, France, with his wife Diana, spoke of his heartache that he never got to meet his father despite constantly asking about him as a child.
The only information James got from his mother was that she had refused his hand in marriage, however, just before James got married she revealed that his father's name was James Sydney Ford.
James explained: "I was constantly asking about my father's whereabouts. I never knew anything about him. Never knew his name, nothing. My father must have been a good man... he wasn't a bad man, it just was he who wasn't wanted."
When James discovered he shared his father's first two names, James Sydney, he immediately decided to change his last name from Pullman to Ford. He continued: "I thought it would be a link to him. I'd be a Ford."
In heart-breaking scenes that aired last night on Monday, June 20 the Long Lost Families team managed to reunite James with his half sister after she had been abandoned by their 'very poor' birth mother at two-weeks-old due to being unable to cope with two children.
James told co-presenter Nicky Campbell that he would love to meet his biological father, however, he was dealt the devastating blow that his father had died in 1969, aged just 42, leaving behind three young children and a wife.
However, James was able to visit his father's grave. The ITV show captured the grieving man as he tearfully placed some flowers by the headstone.
Later in the show James discovered he had another three siblings as researchers managed to locate his father's three children, who are all still living in Yorkshire.
While they were unaware of James, they said their father would've loved to have met him. The siblings met for the first time in a touching moment, James said: "My brother and sisters are lovely, charming people.
Speaking of his father, he said: "He was a nice man. That was everything I hoped he would be.'"
James was reunited with his maternal sister, 68-year-old Joselyn Taylor from Boston Spa, West Yorkshire earlier in the show, who was abandoned by his mother at just two-weeks-old.
Jocelyn had always believed she had been left at a children's home because she was deaf, however, James explained that their mother had to give her up due to financial difficulties.
James explained: "She couldn’t cope with both of us. She was unmarried, she had two or three jobs sometimes to keep food on the table."
Jocelyn's older brother reassured her that his mother wouldn’t have realised she was deaf before giving her up at two-weeks-old, he added: "Not being that little. No way."
Despite being abandoned as a new-born Jocelyn went on to have a happy childhood and attended a specialist school for deaf children.
She discovered she had a sibling when her adoptive mother Kathleen revealed that Joselyn’s birth mother had once arrived at the sweet shop, asking for money with a five-year-old boy alongside her.
Jocelyn said: "She was obviously very, very poor. My adoptive mother told her to get out of the shop."
James and Joselyn’s mother, Lois Pullman, has died but the two siblings have now been reunited, Joselyn said: "I felt an instant connection – he cried, he really cried. It was lovely."
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