Marc Wolfe was adopted as a baby into a Jewish family and grew up in north London never knowing who his mother was and why she gave him up.
His desire for answers increased when his adoptive mother died when he was 16 and left him feeling as if “he had lost two mothers”.
He added: “I started to feel insecure about where I came from and decided I wanted to find my birth mother.”
“Deep down, I have always wondered why I was given up. Was it that she didn’t want me?”
His story was told to viewers of the ITV series Long Lost Family on Tuesday which included scenes of an emotional face-to-face reunion.
Through the programme he discovered his Jewish birth-mother felt she had no choice but to give him up for adoption after becoming pregnant at 19 with a non-Jewish man.
His adoptive parents had told him that his birth mother had gone to great lengths to ensure he went to a Jewish family, something he always found comforting.
Mr Wolfe, now a 49-year-old father of three and working as an airport shuttle bus driver with grandchildren of his own, began making inquiries and ordered his birth certificate to discover his birth mother was called Esther Joan Howard. “It was important to her that I should be brought up Jewish by a Jewish family,” he told viewers. “But deep down I always wondered, was I actually wanted? I have that doubt every day of my life.”
Researchers discovered that Esther had married in Oxford in 1972. But when they searched for her under her married name, they drew a blank.
They finally located her in New Zealand after records on her father’s will revealed a clue.
Mrs Howard, who is married with two grown-up children, told presenter Nicky Campbell that she “could not believe” her son wanted to meet her and how she flew over 10,000 miles for the reunion.
Mrs Howard described how she was sent away while she was pregnant and her son was taken away after only nine days.
She said she thought a lot about wanting to find him but “didn’t know where to start.
“I told my husband about him before we were married but I have only just told my children,” she said.
“To get on with your life you just have to block it out. I never talked about it.”
The pair were reunited in London, where Mr Wolfe told his mother she was a great-grandmother after an emotional embrace.
But he was able to reassure her that he had a happy childhood.
“Having my mother in my life again after all these years, it made me feel complete. The more I look at her the more I see myself,” he said.
Mrs Howard added: “I never thought it would happen. I hope we can have a relationship.”
Since the programme was made they have met each other’s families and Mr Wolfe has tracked down his birth father.
Long Lost Family is available on ITV Player
