Like many foundlings, Andy Hallsworth had always assumed his birth mother must have been young, alone and scared when she abandoned him.
But he discovers the shocking reality and a complex story on tonight's brand new series of Long Lost Family Born Without Trace.
The 56-year-old was left on church steps in west London as a baby and knew almost nothing about the circumstances of his birth.
All he had to verify that he was a foundling was a single a piece of adoption paperwork saying he was born 'on or about' 31st August 1965.
The name given to him at the time was David Sutherland, because he was found in Sutherland Place, and he gets emotional while touching the steps where he was found for the first time.
"Thinking of my mum coming down this road and putting me here. It seems like a really lovely church and she must have thought, 'I want somebody to find him'," he says in tonight's episode.
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Andy, who now lives in Norfolk with his wife Catherine and their two kids, grew up with adoptive parents Stanley and Anne Hallsworth.
He had a happy childhood and didn't think much about being adopted until he was expecting his first child with his wife.
Andy and Catherine were asked about their medical history - and that is when he found out he was an abandoned baby and nothing was known about his past.
"I haven’t got anything of my origins. I don’t even know if the 31st August is my birthday. Who found me, anything. I'd love to know all of that but I don't," he explains.
The zoo keeper, who specialises in communicating with birds, enlists the help of the Long Lost Family team and amazingly they find his original birth certificate.
Seeing the document for the first time, Andy realises that he was nearly two months old when he was found.
Discovering that he spent the first few weeks of his life with his birth mother makes Andy even more determined to trace her.
"It makes you think about what she was going through. To have given me up must have taken a lot," he says.
Andy finds a newspaper clipping of himself as a baby in a newspaper and goes back to St. Mary of the Angles church to see the back door where he was found.
"Finding all that information out and knowing it's true, that I was here 56-years ago, has made me think about my birth mother," he says,
"I think she loved me and I think she tried to put me somewhere I wuld be found, it must have been a terrible situation she was in to do what she had to do."
Andy wants to trace his birth mother to give both of them some peace, but DNA uncovers the shocking truth that Andy’s birth parents.
On the DNA database the team finds a full sibling, a sister, and discover Andy is the eldest of eight children.
Andy's parents, who brought his seven siblings up, got married when his mother was six months pregnant with him.
His mum and dad came from strict, religious Irish families and it would have been a "social disgrace" to have a baby just three months after marrying.
So they came to England to have Andy in the safety of a hospital and left him because they could not take him back to Ireland.
Andy's father sadly passed away aged 75 in 2009 and he is told off-camera out of respect, but his mother was pleased to be found and wants to meet him.
A thrilled Andy can't believe his parents stayed together and discovers he was born in a hospital he used to drive past to work every day.
Andy, who feels no resentment, says: "Things were different then and they had to do what they had to do."
He travels to Ireland and is given the obituary of his birth father, discovering he loved to tell stories, laugh and was "one of life's gentlemen".
"The fact he loved animals and the kind of character he was, that's me. It's so nice," says Andy, who visits his birth father's grave.
"It's a shame he's gone and I won't get a chance to meet him as I think we would have got on very well. I would have liked to say I forgive him and everything is ok.
"I'm proud he was like that and I'm proud that I'm like him."
His mother does not wish to be identified so they meet away from the cameras at a hotel not far from where she lives and his siblings grew up.
Andy explains that they had a hug and started speaking for the next three hours.
His mother said what she had to do was a terrible feeling but there was no way she could have come back with a baby as she would have been "banished and outcast".
"They had thought about me for their whole lives and quietly wondered what had happened which is good to knows," he says.
"It was so nice to be able to tell her I had a happy childhood and show her pictures of me."
Andy is given photos of his brothers and sisters and is delighted to finally know where he is from.
He is now in touch with his birth sister and hopes to meet the rest of his siblings in the future.
*Long Lost Family Born Without Trace starts on Monday23 May at 9pm on ITV and ITV Hub.
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