'I was snatched from a moving train as a baby and my whole life changed in an instant'

In a devastating sliding doors moment, the course of Peter Macdonald’s entire life was changed forever when he was snatched from a train as a baby. Peter was just ten weeks old when his mother fled with him and his big brother Trevor, just two-years-old, to escape their father. At Preston Railway Station, just as the train to London was pulling away, their father unexpectedly turned up on the platform, reached inside the carriage window and tried to take the children. Trevor was standing behind his mother and couldn’t be reached, but little Peter was grabbed out of his mother’s arms. The train pulled away and Peter, now 58, never saw his mother or brother again after that terrible moment.

Before he was six months old, Peter’s father placed him in foster care and he was separated from his entire birth family. Peter, a widowed painter and decorator, who lives in Accrington, Lancashire, says: “My father grabbed me off my mother. I was in her arms, I was two-and-a-half months old. I’ve never seen my mother again. That was the last time I was with my brother Trevor. I’ve always wanted to find him.”

Peter, whose wife Julie died three years ago, has two daughters and four grandchildren, and has always longed for Trevor to meet his beloved family. “Trevor’s been on my mind for over 50 years,” he says. Desperate to track down his brother, Peter has looked for him ever since he learned of his existence when he was aged seven, and there was an incredible breakthrough after Peter’s daughter Chloe wrote to the ITV show Long Lost Family. After first hitting a stumbling block, with no trace of Trevor, the TV show’s research team searched for anyone called Trevor with the middle initial E (for Edward) born in 1963 and eventually found three possible matches. One replied, confirming that he grew up knowing about a younger brother called Peter, and lived in London, where his mother had fled to all those years ago. It emerges that their mother had sadly passed away 17 years ago in 2008.

READ MORE: BBC Morning Live's Gethin Jones delivers sad news as BBC presenter 'takes turn for the worse'

READ MORE: ‘Masterful’ adaptation of ‘excellent’ period novel declared the best

Peter says: “The first thing that goes through your mind, you're angry. You ask, why? Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you come back? After I found out that she'd passed, I was going to leave the show. I felt like I couldn't do this anymore because I was frightened of what was coming next, that maybe Trevor had passed - and I didn't want to look for anybody else.” In emotional scenes, to be screened on the new series this week, Peter and Trevor are finally reunited, with Trevor revealing that before their mother died, she told him: “Find Peter”. And the reunion becomes even more poignant when Trevor reveals that they are meeting on their mother’s birthday.

Trevor, 61, a carpenter who lives with his partner in East London, says: “Mum was a very strict person, money was tight, it was hard. I knew about my brother. I’ve known about him since I was about nine or ten. My mother didn’t speak about him a great deal but when she did speak about him she often wondered how he was. Mum thought ‘Leave him where he is, he’s probably better off there’. Mum just said she was leaving to go to London and we’d got on the train to get away from my dad. I know she must have been holding Peter and I must have been standing behind her. The train was pulling out and my dad leaned in and pulled him through the window. He couldn’t get to me because I was behind. He tried to get both of us and I do know it happened as the train pulled off, so she had no chance to try and get him back. It’s like something you see in a film.”

Trevor adds: “When my mum got very ill, she started to talk a lot more, open up a lot more. You could see it in her face when she spoke about it. She always said she regretted it, not going back for him. She did say to me: ‘Find him, look for him.’ A week or so later she passed away.” Peter says: “I found out I was fostered when I was seven. I remember being sat on a roll-top carpet when they told me everything. They said we’re not your mum and dad and you have a brother. At the time it just went over my head. I was too young to understand. It only really registered when I was 13 or 14. I started to get curious and ask questions, but the answers weren’t there.”

Peter also saw some documents referring to a boy named Trevor a couple of years older than him, and decided to track down his father in order to find his brother. He says: “I found my father in 1995, before he died. I wanted to meet him just so I could get to Trevor. There didn’t seem to be any chemistry there at all. He didn’t know where my brother was, but he told me what happened. He said my mother had taken us to the railway station. She was on the train with me and Trevor and he turned up and there was a bit of an argument. He grabbed me, the door shut and that was it. The train pulled away."

He adds: "I do feel for my mother. Anybody taking your child off you would be very traumatic. If she’d have kept hold of me and he hadn’t snatched me, then everything would have been the way I wanted it to be. With Trevor.” He adds: “The story I was always told was not as dramatic as what Trevor told us. It was worse than I thought, him reaching through the window and snatching me. To think that the train was going and I could have just gone with them. I didn’t realise we were actually on the train. I just thought there was an argument at the station.”

In the show, Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell reveal to the brothers separately that the other has been found. Both men are tearful and struck by the extraordinary family resemblance. “I thought I was on my own,” says Peter, overwhelmed. "Hearing that Trevor had been found… I’ve never taken drugs in my life, but it felt like I’d just had a load of drugs. Everything was just ‘wow’. It was amazing. I can’t explain it.” Shown a photo of his mother for the first time, Peter says: “She’s got the look of my daughter,” while Trevor says: “He looks a lot like mum. I think she’d be proud of me that I’m seeing him.” Peter adds: “I’m sorry I never got to meet her and it did give me a nice warm feeling that she told Trevor to find me.”

When the brothers meet in London, they immediately hug in silence, both choked with emotion. Peter says: “It’s been a long time. I’m still pinching myself, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. Two brothers together and last. There is an automatic connection.” Trevor tells Peter: “Before she passed away, she actually did say she was so sorry that she never went after you. She said she couldn’t get out to you because the train was pulling away. She never forgot you. She always said ‘Find him’ - and you found me.” Peter says: “I’ve always thought that she never wanted me. Meeting on her birthday is the best present isn’t it, for mum." After agreeing that Peter will call Trevor ‘Bruv’, the siblings share a pint and Peter then introduces Trevor to Chloe and her daughter. Speaking in front of a framed photo of the brothers together, Peter says: “We speak every week and I go down and see him as often as I can. You just couldn't write what happened. I’m still taking everything in.”

The new series of Long Lost Family starts on Thursday 18th September on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm

Join The Mirror’s WhatsApp Community or follow us on Google News, Flipboard, Apple News, TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram, Twitter , Facebook , and Threads - or visit The Mirror homepage.