Review: Lost and Found

David Lomas of Lost and Found

Investigative journalist, researcher and television presenter David Lomas is always impressive.

His calm delivery and demeanour ensures Lost and Found, a programme that searches for missing family members, never employs histrionics or an overt emotional push to get the point across.

He's like the calm in the midst of a storm pulling estranged family members back together often after a lifetime of wondering and hoping.

In Dunedin Anthony who was one of three Maori babies adopted and brought up by an English couple, decided as an adult to try and trace his Maori roots.

It was his own children that had spurred him on and the more he thought about it the more he realised his children needed to know about their Maori whanau and iwi.

Anthony said his childhood in Dunedin had been idyllic because his parents had very much loved and cared for them "we were a very happy content family".

All he knew about his Maori heritage was the name of his dad Walter Smith described as a gambler and handsome itinerant man who unfortunately was a "ratbag."

Finding Walter was like the proverbial needle in the haystack but Lomas knew there had been a story or three years before in the "scandal rag" Truth tabloid newspaper.

A painstaking search pulled a story up where Walter had been jailed and Lomas learned that Smith was from a marae north of Whangarei.

He found Walter's two sisters but unfortunately Walter had died two years before.

The day Anthony and his met his two sisters at the marae was very moving.

And the following day when they were welcomed onto the marae by extended whanau was when the tears flowed. It was one of the most joyous events I've see.

Like that beautiful movie Poi E it had all the elements of family, love and wonder.
Though Lomas was there, his presence was practically imperceptible. Yet he was the one who had brought it all to fruition in the very best and loving way.

Perfect man for the job.