Blue-eyed Son: The Story of an Adoption

Blue Eyed Son is Nicky Campbell’s extraordinary story of his search for – and reunion with – his natural parents. Campbell, the Radio 5 Live and BBC1 ‘Watchdog’ presenter was adopted as a tiny baby into a comfortable Protestant Scottish family. His father had been in the Indian Army, his mother was a psychiatric social worker and he grew up in a middle-class area, went to a good school, university and on to a highly successful career in the media. He always knew he’d been adopted and had occasionally wondered about his natural parents, but it wasn’t until he was in his thirties, 12 years ago, that he embarked on the hunt for his birth mother. When he found her, what she told him came as a shock. His natural father was not only an Irish Catholic, but an Irish Republican and his paternal grandfather had fought in the IRA alongside Michael Collins in the 1920s. The clash of cultures, of creed and of ideology between their world and the world he grew up in couldn’t be more striking. In this refreshingly candid book he tells the story of his journey to find his parents, the dark secrets that have been revealed and the journey he has had to make since finding them.