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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Big Brother's Glyn Wise set to be ordained a deacon as he trains to become a priest - almost 20 years after he appeared on the reality show
Big Brother's Glyn Wise is set to be ordained a deacon as he trains to become a priest it was announced on Friday - almost 20 years after he appeared on the reality show. Glyn, who came second on the reality show back in 2006, first announced that he is was in the process of training to be a catholic priest in his native Wales back in 2022. During a service at St Asaph Cathedral, north Wales, on Saturday June 28 he will be formally recognised and commissioned. He will then continue his training to be a priest in the Aled Mission Area around Old Colwyn and Betws yn Rhos, the diocese of St Asaph reports. The former reality star has completed a 770km walk from the French Camino to Santiago de Compostela in Spain which took him 22 days. The 2006 series of Big Brother was hosted by Davina McCall and featured an array of famous housemates including Imogen Thomas, Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace and the late Nikki Grahame. Glyn previously admitted his decision to embrace Christianity and become a priest began after he lost himself to the whirlwind of publicity after his appearance on the hit reality show. The Welshman was just 18-years old when he appeared on the seventh series of Big Brother - then a hugely popular Channel 4 flagship - in 2006, finishing runner-up to winner Pete Bennett. Glyn, a Christian since birth, turned his back on public life, opting instead to devote himself to God. But he admitted to losing touch with his faith while being filmed 24-hours a day, and would often pray beneath the sanctuary of his duvet because he feared being mocked for his faith. He told MailOnline when he began his training in 2022: 'I had so much faith and determination to get a place on TV's biggest reality show. 'I prayed and as always – God was listening. He guided me through the audition process easily until I entered the show. 'Back in 2006, one in four of the population would watch reality TV. I prayed for God to guide me through the game show and eventually, after three months of being locked in a house I finished as runner-up. 'However, I prayed under the covers as I thought "being cool" was more important than being a Christian, which I heavily regret.' After spending his childhood in rural Wales, Glyn was quickly swept up by London's hectic party scene as he adjusted to life in the public eye following his appearance in the Big Brother compound. However he struggled to adapt to his newfound celebrity status and admits his devout attachment to Christianity was all but forgotten as he attended non-stop red carpet events, exclusive parties and premieres. He said: 'After the show, I was thrust into the spotlight. I was a guest on all UK TV and radio shows. I won a contract with a Calvin Klein modelling agency; I was a youth radio host for BBC Radio Cymru and I was given the tile of 'Ambassador of the Welsh Language' by Rhodri Morgan, Wales' first minster. 'I was invited to all sorts of parties and movie premieres – but deep down I felt lonely. During this period I left my faith behind. I had lost the real me in the middle of the glitz and glamour of fame. I needed to get back on track. 'I had become someone I hardly recognised, but yet everyone else felt as though they knew me.'
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Emotional moment man, 58, finally finds birth mother who abandoned him as a baby - but she doesn't want to meet him
A man was left heartbroken after finally locating his birth mother who abandoned him as a newborn baby in 1966 - only for her not to be ready to meet him. Simon Prothero, 58, was discovered as a young baby outside a toilet block of a children's home in Neath, Wales. Up until recently, he had no information on why or who left him. Soon after he was found, he was adopted by loving parents and grew up in a village just ten miles away from the children's home. When he was nine, they told him about the details behind his adoption. Fortunately, Simon enjoyed a happy childhood with his late adoptive parents. But years later, his wife Helen encouraged him to apply to ITV's Long Lost Family: Born Without a Trace to help solve the mystery of his heritage. 'I don't know where I was born when I was born, what the circumstances were. I don't know who my mother is,' Simon said on the latest episode of the show, which aired on ITV yesterday at 9pm. In September last year, Helen tragically died from cancer. Knowing Helen's wishes, Simon employed the help of Long Lost Family's team and hosts Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell to continue his search for his birth family. DNA tracing meant that, despite Simon not having a paper trail, researchers managed to track down his birth mother, and Simon finally received the information about who his family are and where he came from. However, in an emotional turn of events, Simon's birth mother, who is now in her eighties and had him when she was young, unmarried, and on her own without family support, was still not ready for contact with Simon. At the start of the episode, Simon visited the children's home where he was found for the first time and reflected on his past. He said, 'I believe I was only a few hours old when I was found', he said, adding, 'Nobody's ever come forward.' 'I think my mother lived local; I don't think a stranger would have found this place. It's so much to take in. I want to know why she felt like she had to give me up.' The visit proved to be a poignant experience for Simon, who knew little about his beginnings, and up until recently, had never even seen a photograph of himself as a baby. 'I don't actually have any photographs of myself growing up as a baby, through my childhood, I haven't got anything,' he said. Though he knew little about his life as a newborn, Simon did enjoy a happy childhood with 'loads of lovely memories'. 'My [adoptive] parents were very loving. They were really good parents, I had a very good upbringing,' he recalled. When the researchers got to work looking for DNA connections, they also tried to find a photograph of Simon to allow him to see himself as a young baby for the first time. Luckily, the team located a newsreel of baby Simon from 1966, allowing him to see footage of himself around the time he was found. 'That was the first time I've ever seen myself as a baby. Amazing. It looked as if I was cared for. It's mind blowing to be honest,' he said after watching the clip. Back at the DNA search, a lead called Noel emerged, which connected Simon to a very large family group from north Wales. Noel agreed to do a DNA test, which led researchers to identify Simon's birth mother, who is alive and in her eighties. Researchers discovered that, when Simon was born, his birth mother was young, unmarried, on her own without family support, and the relationship with Simon's birth father had ended. Unlike Simon's previous assumptions, his birth mother isn't from near the children's home in Neath, but from North Wales. She couldn't recall why she left him in that area. When Long Lost Family contacted Simon's birth mother, her first reaction was sadly to question, 'Am I going to be in trouble for this?' The team reassured her that it wouldn't be the case. Davina informed Simon of the findings and that his birth mother is not ready for contact yet, but that the Long Lost Family hope that she might be in the future. There was no information found regarding his birth father. 'I can't quite get my head around it,' Simon said. He added, I was hoping for some sort of answers and a little bit more on my background.' 'I would like to meet her, but obviously, if it's not meant to be, it's not meant to be. I can't take it in at all to be honest.' 'Hopefully we do get to meet, it would mean a lot,' Simon added. Though Simon's birth mother wasn't ready to meet him, other family members, including Noel, gladly welcomed him into the family. The Long Lost Family team didn't explain Simon's exact connection to Noel to protect his birth mother's identity. At the end of the episode, Simon met three generations of his birth family's relatives and exchanged addresses with them. Simon concluded, 'I've had a few answers, I'd like to have a few more, but it's been a good day,' he said.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Is it really suitable to televise this heartbreaking moment?
A typically emotional journey of highs and hard-to-watch heartbreak kicked off a seventh series of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (ITV1), which set Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell on the identity trail of two more foundlings. One, Simon Prothero, was left in an outside toilet block in Neath. The other, Lisa Dyke, was found in a car park in another child's pram outside a health clinic. They came to the LLF team to find out what happened. Both of their paths to finding out who left them and why were copybook Long Lost Family, which is to say, extremely moving throughout. I clocked the LLF TTT (Long Lost Family Time to Tears) at 3 minutes and 41 seconds, and I was welling up not long afterwards. Even for this most lachrymose of series, this is a resplendent triumph. If that sounds soulless and cynical, remember that this is commercial television that, for its success, relies on fomenting, through DNA testing, hugely sensitive situations and then filming the outcome to transfer those emotions to the empathetic viewer. Of course, the aim is to help your Simons and your Lisas to find out 'who they are', in the common coinage. But that's not the only aim. Long Lost Family does tread very carefully, which is to its credit. Difficult news is broken to its subjects off-camera. The meetings with newfound family are filmed in good taste and with minimal American-style schmaltz. On the other hand, television is always manipulative. Is it fair, for example, in the case of Simon here, to find his birth mother and then have to tell him that she didn't want to be contacted? Might that not make Simon feel lost and unwanted a second time over? To these jaded eyes, it makes Long Lost Family slightly queezy viewing. The great DNA revolution, with home testing and the concomitant genealogy boom, has undoubtedly helped lots of people to find out who they are. But it comes with side effects, too. Lots of people have found things out that, on reflection, it might have been better not to have known, and that now can't be un-known. Whatever your position, it certainly shouldn't be television producers influencing these genuinely life-altering choices. What was particularly fascinating in this episode was Simon's admitting that it was watching old series of Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace that inspired him to apply to the programme and dig up his own history in the first place. There's a cultural genealogy to television, too, one in which over time the things we watch affect how we behave. It's probably too early to tell whether the repeated posing of the question, 'Who do you think you are?' and the ability to find out on camera in the presence of Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell, has been an unmitigated good. Simon would be worth asking, but we never got that far.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews: Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace: Davina's DNA search show's been left behind by the march of science
Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace (ITV1) Science that seemed miraculous a few years ago is now commonplace. We would be disappointed if a complex paternity riddle couldn't be solved with a single DNA swab. Long Lost Family: Born Without Trace is now in its seventh series, helping people abandoned at birth to find out who their real parents were. And even presenters Nicky Campbell and Davina McCall no longer appear surprised when a five-minute genetic test matches an adoptee with blood relatives they've never met. But the possibilities created by global DNA databases are now far more astounding than anything Long Lost Family has shown us so far. Writer Barbara Demick spent years in China reporting on its cruel 'one-child-per-family' policy, which lasted from 1980 to 2015. Parents who dared have a second baby were punished with fines equivalent to several years' income. Officials from the Family Planning department smashed up their homes and confiscated their possessions — often stealing their children, too. Many thousands of Chinese children were adopted by Europeans, Americans and Australians. At that time, it was unimaginable any of them would ever be able to discover their own roots. 'An adoptee finding her birth family seemed no more likely than locating a particular grain of sand,' wrote Demick, whose book Daughters Of The Bamboo Grove was reviewed in the Mail on Sunday last weekend. African dish of the night: Visiting a pizzeria run by an Egyptian father and son, on Tucci In Italy (National Geographic and Disney+), actor Stanley was startled to learn the first pizzas were baked for the Pharaohs. Surely, if that were true, they'd be pyramid-shaped instead of round. Demick interviewed one man, Zhou Changqi from Hunan province, who was desperate for news of the daughter taken from him and his wife in 2001. He'd sacrificed everything in his search, and was now living penniless in a corrugated iron shack. 'I miss my daughter all the time,' he begged. 'I know if she's gone to America, I can't get her back. I'm not trying. I would like to get a picture of her.' Incredibly, in 2022, a DNA ancestry service brought them together. Zhou's daughter, who grew up in middle-class Indiana, took a test for health reasons, checking for genes that indicated a higher risk of cancer. Instead, she found her birth parents. Both stories in the first of the new series of Long Lost Family seemed unremarkable by comparison. A woman named Lisa who was left in another baby's pram in the late 1960s discovered she had three full siblings — all of whom were brought up at home by their parents, both now dead. Fortunately, Lisa enjoyed a happy childhood with her adoptive mum and dad. She must have wondered, though, whether she was any better off for knowing she was the only one of the four to be abandoned. And a man from Neath, 59-year-old Simon, learned that his birth mother was still alive — but that she didn't want to meet him. That, too, was an unrewarding outcome, though he was warmly welcomed by his extended family of cousins.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Emotional Long Lost Family foundling left stunned by shocking family secret
AN emotional foundling on Long Lost Family was stunned after learning a shocking family secret. A foundling is a child whom is abandoned at birth with no obvious trace or connection to a set of birth parents. 5 5 5 Lisa Dyke, 55, was left in another baby's pram in Christchurch, Hampshire. Although raised by loving adoptive parents, she had lingering questions about her origins. However, Lisa was left stunned by what was ultimately revealed to her. Lisa's parents had three other children - all full siblings to her. In fact, she is the third-born child - and the only one to be left. Lisa has an older brother and sister, Tim and Jen, as well as younger sister Lynn. She told host Davina McCall: "I'm trying to process it. Unfortunately, both of Lisa's birth parents had already passed away. Taking to X, one viewer penned: "Goodness, how does anybody try and process that, I've no idea." Another wrote: "It must be so hard to find out that after you were left another baby came along." A third shared: "Lisa's story has broken me. I am a dry husk after all the tears." While a fourth remarked: "Wow thats such a big revelation for bith Lisa and her siblings." It's not the first time the ITV show has featured heartbreaking stories. A previous Born Without Trace instalment followed the story of Thomas Yeo. Three newborns abadoned by same parents 'Baby Elsa', named after the protagonist in Frozen, was found in sub-zero temperatures in Newham, east London. She was believed to be less than an hour old when she was discovered by a dog walker, wrapped in a towel inside a reusable shopping bag with her umbilical cord still attached. The Metropolitan Police suspect Elsa was born after a 'concealed pregnancy' - where a woman does not tell health professionals she is expecting. DNA tests have since revealed Elsa has two siblings - a brother and a sister, who were abandoned in 2017 and 2019 respectively, within miles of where she was found. The other babies, Harry and Roman, were discovered wrapped in blankets. They have both been adopted. The parents of the three children are yet to be identified At East London Family Court last week, Judge Carol Atkinson ruled the biological link between 'Elsa' and the other two children could be reported. It was deemed of "great public interest" due to babies rarely being abandoned in modern Britain. The trio are among five cases of children being abandoned at birth within the last four years in England and Wales. In 2020, a baby was discovered in Hackney, east London, and another was found in Birmingham in 2021. Both of their mothers were tracked down several months later. Having submitted his DNA to a database, the team found a first cousin, Martina, in Ireland. But in a shock twist, it transpired that Martina, like Thomas, was also a foundling. The two cousins met but ultimately continued their searches separately. 5 5
