Woman finds long lost sister who lives in Berwick with help from TV show team

Lisa Harding grew up with her single mother Moyra, who told her when a teenager that she (Moyra) had a baby girl when she was a young woman that she gave up for adoption, but had regretted it ever since.

They did not mention it again until it became Moyra’s dying wish to find ‘Alexandra’.

With the help of the Long Lost Family team, Lisa’s sister was traced to Berwick.

The story is part of the episode that is being aired tonight (Monday) on ITV from 9pm. Using trained intermediaries, DNA experts and investigators, Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall find people who previously could not be traced.

‘Alexandra’ is now called Lily and she never searched for her birth family as she feared her mother had not wanted her. In an emotional meeting with Nicky, he tells Lily: “Your mother really felt the pain of it all her life and had tried to find you.”

When Lily sees a photo of Lisa, she sees an instant connection: “Oh my God! We’ve got the same nose! Same eyes. Yep. Definitely look alike. Wow! Yes, definitely sisters.”

The day the two meet is bittersweet as their mum is not with them, she died of cancer, but they are overjoyed to now have one another in their life.

Lisa, who lives with partner Phil and daughter Lea in the Durham area, said her mother confided in her when she was 15 years old.

Lisa recalls to Long Lost Family: “My mum said that at the age of 20, she’d been pregnant, and she’d had a baby girl who she’d named Alexandra.”

Moyra explained that she was unmarried and unable to look after the baby, so put her up for adoption.

It was a shock to Lisa who said: “Being brought up as an only child is a very lonely thing and I always craved a sibling.”

After meeting her sister, she said it was “one of the happiest moments of my life”, and it turns out Lily had always wanted a sister too.

Lily said: “Ever since I was young I used to say: ‘Oh, what it must be like to have a sister’.”