It’s now getting on for 12 years since Long Lost Family was first on our screens. As an adopted child himself, presenter Nicky Campbell has a special connection with the people searching for birth parents, children and siblings.
In fact the chap we see on ITV’s Long Lost Family is just as sensitive, sympathetic and empathic when the cameras have stopped rolling. Plus, he’s passionate about dogs – which makes him a top-dog in our book!
We caught up with him to find out more about his own search for family, and how his dogs have supported him throughout his life.
Long Lost Family
“As an adopted child you definitely have more insight – and therefore empathy,” says Nicky. “The people I’m talking to immediately feel that I am someone who understands them. I’ve learnt so much from these people. What they’ve experienced so often echoes my own life, especially when you hear things like, ‘I wanted to trace my birth mother but I was afraid of being rejected or of being disloyal to my adoptive parents’.
“I can’t help but get emotionally involved and do find it hard to switch off. Often the stories on Long Lost Family affect me for days. But it’s such a privilege to part of it and of those people’s lives.”
Long Lost Family is on ITV and you can catch up on previous episodes on ITV Hub__.
One of The Family
Nicky has just written a memoir called One of The Family – why a Dog called Maxwell Changed My Life.
The brave and moving memoir by the Long Lost Family presenter and Radio 5 breakfast show host reveals how the simple unconditional love of Maxwell, his Labrador, turned his life around and helped him come to terms with his difficult journey as an adopted child.
“I was adopted when I was four days old and although I couldn’t have asked for better adoptive parents – in fact, being loved and brought up by them was like winning the childhood lottery – I always felt like an outsider,” Nicky tells us.
“Candy came to us when I was still very small and, being a dog, he was also adopted and an outsider. We immediately formed a very close bond. In fact, when I was small, I thought I was a dog; I’d crawl around on all-fours and want to eat from a bowl on the floor!
“We were the dynamic duo – and he was my brother, my life coach and role model. I became a real-life wolf boy, the Mowgli of Midlothian. Candy’s unconditional love and the fact that he was always there and seemed to know what I was thinking was such a comfort to me.”
When Nicky was 11 years old, Candy died and understandably, he was devastated. “The despair that hit me was, and is still, like nothing else I’ve ever known,” Nicky reveals. “Candy was never coming home. I was never going to see him again. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t hear. I’d never even considered the possibility that Candy would die. He had always been there and I thought he always would.”
On reaching his teens Nicky, like many boys of his age, became distracted by music, his mates and girls. He did well academically and after leaving school, went to university in Aberdeen. Within a few years of graduating, Nicky was DJ-ing at Capital Radio in London at the beginning of a glittering broadcasting career. Life was good, yet he still felt like an outsider and wanted to learn where he had come from. So he decided to try to trace his birth mother.
Although this proved to be easier than he anticipated, when he actually met her it was almost as if she was a stranger. This was to have a delayed effect on him, emotionally.
In 1997, Nicky married journalist Christina Ritchie and they went on to have four daughters – now in their teens and early 20s. Then on July 4, 2008 – 35 years to the very day that Candy had passed away – eight-week-old puppy Maxwell came into his life.
“Getting Maxwell was my wife’s idea,” says Nicky. “She knew it was the right time for the dog we had always promised ourselves but been too busy for. And she was right. I needed that unfathomable special extra dimension in my life more than ever.
“As I snuffled Maxwell, as dogs do when they’re happy to see you, we bonded immediately. Our instant connection was extraordinary – something suddenly made perfect sense to both of us. His language was my first language from before I could even walk, let alone talk, from before anyone was able to explain to me that I wasn’t actually a dog and Candy wasn’t my real brother.”
Maxwell was a tower of strength when Nicky (59) suffered a breakdown and then was diagnosed with bipolar disorder several years ago.
“Dogs seem to know, feel and instinctively empathise with their owners,” says Nicky. “You don’t have to explain anything to them. This is very good for your mental health. With your closest friends and family, you feel compelled to explain why you’re feeling the way you do. You don’t always want to do that, though. Quite often, you just want to get through it and get over it.
“With a dog, you can just be together in the moment. It’s a truly magical connection.
“I will never forget Candy and how much he helped me, and I owe so much to Maxwell, my miracle. Our relationship has been one of total trust and understanding and when we’re alone together in enhanced solitude the feeling of peace he brings, the golden companionship he gives me, is indescribable.”
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Nicky opens up about how being adopted has made him always feel like an outsider; the guilt he has carried towards his Mum and Dad for needing to trace his birth mother, and the crushing disappointment he felt when he finally met her. And for the first time, he writes about his emotional breakdown and how he has learned to live with a late diagnosis of bipolar.
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