https://www.dailymail.com/lifestyle/article-16025029/long-lost-family-man-abandoned-birth.htmlMan holds back tears as he's given a letter from his birth relatives after being abandoned in a London apartment as a baby by his religious Dutch mother 66 years ago
David, 66, was on ITV's Long Lost Family Born Without Trace
READ MORE: Man hunts for estranged sibling on Long Lost Family after learning his sister is actually his MUM - and he was raised by his grandparents all along
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By ELMIRA TANATAROVA, ASSISTANT LIFESTYLE EDITOR
Updated: 12:27, 4 August 2026
A man held back tears as he was given a letter from his birth relatives –fter being abandoned in a block of flats as a newborn. In 1960, David Stevenson, tiny and cold but well fed wrapped in a rainbow of colourful knitted clothes, was found in a hallway on the second floor, outside one of the flats. At the time, his story made front-page news in the Daily Mail in an appeal to identify him, and was revisited by the newspaper in 2009 in another attempt to uncover new leads. But for 66 years, David has lived with no knowledge of what happened to him or the circumstances that led to his abandonment, with little information in his adoption records. But now his search to find his birth mother is finally over after ITV's Long Lost Family Born Without Trace put him in touch with her family, which is shown in the first episode. After tracing his relatives back to the Netherlands, presenter Davina McCall gave David a letter from them, in which they explained that his mother came from a religious family and likely felt like she wouldn't be supported by her loved ones as a single mother. A teary-eyed David said: 'I've often said I'm not looking for another family, you know. All I want to know is where did I come from?
'But seeing these and reading the letter, um, you know, I want to meet these people…That's, that's as big as it can be.'
During the episode, David got to revisit the block of flat in Golders Green where he was left in, questioning: 'Babies are often left at a police station or a hospital. This is a locked private block. Were some of the other residents somehow involved?'
Two family members, including a woman named Marianne agree to take DNA tests – which enabled Ariel to identify David's birth mother as a woman called Petra, who, sadly, passed away in 2010. Marianne David's aunt and his first cousins, Saskia and Bart, told the show that the family had never even known Petra had been pregnant. 'That's just very sad to think of,' they admitted. 'A very young woman in a strange place in another country and then giving birth somewhere to a child...'
After leaving school, Petra moved to Paris where she worked as an au pair. It is thought that this explains David's French heritage – but due to strict laws around DNA testing there, it was not possible to confirm this.
She then moved to London, where she gave birth to David. Not much is known about Petra's time in the UK, but her relatives recounted that she grew up in a strict Catholic household where news of her pregnancy would not have been tolerated. 'They would also have been very concerned with what society would think of having a child born out of wedlock,' they explained.
Petra returned to the Netherland and did not have any more children. David was moved by hearing how much his birth mother had to go through. 'Oh wow, I find that surprising,' he shared. 'And quite sad actually you know having given up the one child that she did have.'
He then became emotional on receiving a letter from his Rotterdam relatives in which they shared that they would love to meet him and share their memories of Petra. And that's exactly what David did. He headed straight to the Netherlands to meet, Marianne, Bart and Saskia, and another first cousin, Jan. 'One of the most rewarding thing sis to hear them talk about her,' he explained. 'It's helped me form an idea of her character.'
