A woman who was abandoned as a child in a fruit box at a local hospital has met her brother and sister she never knew existed.
TV's Long Lost Family helped 54-year-old Caroline Harris-Grey track down her long-lost siblings after exploring her tragic past as she was dumped in a box just ten days after being born.
As reported by our sister title the Mirror, Caroline remembers being told by her adoptive parents about her real mum and dad as they never hid the fact that she was adopted.
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Therapist Caroline said: "Like any teenager, I was having an identity crisis at that time. I was loved and never treated differently to my brothers but at times, I'd look in the mirror and think, 'I don't know who I am'. So finding out I was a foundling added to that. I felt lost and abandoned."
It was only when she had her own son years later that Caroline realised the state her birth mum have been in to have abandoned her.
"I know the love you feel for your baby, so she must have been desperate, poor woman," she says.
Caroline eventually let her suspicions get the better of her and decided to find out what really happened after she was born - that led to her TV meeting with her half-brother Paul, 55, and sister Tina, 53.
"There was an instant bond... like I'd found my people," Caroline recalls. "We had the same humour. It felt like I'd known them for ever." She waited so long to start her search because of her adoptive family.
"I didn't want my parents to think I wasn't grateful for the loving upbringing they gave me," she says.
"I didn't want to hurt them. And though I was curious, I thought the chance of finding anything out was slim. I came to live with that."
The nurse in the matron's office who found Caroline all those decades ago chose her first name, while her surname, Wales, came from the Prince of Wales Hospital in Tottenham, North London, where she was left.
Caroline was taken to a children's home before going to live in Potters Bar, Herts, with her adoptive parents and their sons Paul and Duncan. She left home at 17 and married car salesman Dean when she was 23.
Caroline had a son, Luke, now 29, three years later which triggered flashbacks of her own birth. "It hit home," she admits. "Luke was premature and I recall sitting by the incubator, willing him to pull through.
"It made me think my birth mum must have been absolutely desperate to fight those maternal feelings."
Sadly, Caroline's adoptive dad Adrian died seven years ago and with her stepmother Jean, now 87, she decided it was time to start searching for her birth parents.
After fruitless efforts, she contacted Long Lost Family, hosted by Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall, in 2021.
The ITV show reunites adopted children with their families, as well as trying to establish foundlings' identities for spin-off, Born Without Trace.
Investigators with the show found a newspaper article from 1968 after searching for 'baby girl abandoned in hospital', which referenced Caroline's tragic circumstances.
"I thought I'd been left naked in a box, but it said I was in a white petticoat, dress, shawl and cardigan with green knitted booties," she says.
"I burst into tears. I wasn't just thrown away like rubbish. My mother dressed me with love and the fact I was two weeks old showed she had tried. She must have loved me."
The show's team went on to trace her birth father Ray, who had died of cancer in 2009 at 64. But further digging revealed she had a half-brother and sister through him - and they wanted to meet her.
"It would have been lovely to meet Ray but to find out he had children who wanted to see me was amazing," Caroline recalls. This year, Long Lost Family arranged a meeting with her siblings, Paul and Tina, in Brighton along with her paternal aunt Gloria.
Caroline was nervous but as soon as she saw them, everything changed and there were hugs all round.
"I remember looking at them and thinking, 'I look like someone', as I'd never had that before," Caroline says.
Caroline bonded with the pair and learned Ray was a fireman from North London. After his dad died, he split from his partner and then got Caroline's mum pregnant but went back to his girlfriend and had Paul and Tina, unaware of Caroline's birth.
Caroline initially hid her search from her mum Jean for fear of upsetting her. But the two watched a preview of her episode together.
At one point, Ray's sister Gloria says that if they'd known Caroline existed, they would have taken her in.
But Caroline says: "My mum said to me, 'I'm so glad they didn't, otherwise we wouldn't have had you'. It made me cry." Caroline is now in regular touch with Paul and Tina, and plans a big party in September so Jean can meet her newfound relatives.
"They say I look like family, which means a lot," Caroline says.
As for finding her birth mum, she clings to hope. "She might see the programme but if she doesn't want to come forward, I understand," she says.
"Meeting her would be the icing on the cake but I've met my siblings and found out about my birth father and I'm really happy with that."
