By ALANA MITCHELSON
BEN Clarke was brought up being told his mother was dead. Little had the 32-year-old known that his mother was very much alive.
After more than 30 years of separation, Ben and his sister Krissy recently celebrated their first ever Mother’s Day.
They were reunited on Channel 10’s Long Lost Family television show as decades of family secrets unravelled before the eyes of a national audience.
Their mother, Cathie Tompsett, recounted her horror of discovering that her one-and-a-half-year-old Ben and two-year-old Krissy had been kidnapped from day-care by a “family friend”.
“A private investigator called my sister, Krissy, saying our mum had been looking for us and wanted to know if we would like to meet her. At first I didn’t really believe it,” Ben said.
“We grew up thinking our mother was dead because that was all we knew. We didn’t have any reason to think otherwise.”
But Ben, who lived in Pakenham for more than a decade, had grown curious by his mid-teens and insisted on searching across Australia for his mother’s grave, to no avail.
The Clarkes often moved house throughout Ben and Krissy’s childhoods; eight or nine times interstate alone.
Network Ten reunited the family in Adelaide, the city where Ben was born and where Ms Tompsett had last seen her two children.
“It was a very special occasion for us all. We sat at a park bench and watched our mother walk towards us,” Ben said.
“It was love straight away and we embraced in a big hug.
“It was a sort of weird experience. We had all been carrying this anchor throughout our lives and now that weight has been lifted off our shoulders.
“We talked for ages and stayed in Adelaide for another day. It was a great feeling. We’re looking forward to a future of holidays to visit mum in Perth where she lives.”
Ben’s half-sister Tiffany’s personality was surprisingly similar to his, while his mum was “just like Krissy”, he said.
After 30 years of lies, Ben said he had found it overwhelming to come to terms with the fact that the man who had raised him as his father was, in fact, not related to him and that he had been born from a one-night affair.
“The man who I’d believed to be my father my whole life ended up being a stepfather who was not related to me at all. And he took me and Krissy away from our mother,” Ben said.
“The reunion’s opened up Pandora’s box a little bit. It’s put a lot of tension on my relationship with my stepfather now. I haven’t spoken to him since I confronted him about mum and lying to us for all of these years, because he said he didn’t want to talk about her.
“It makes it hard because he has been my father and has taught me to be the person I am. It’s difficult to let go of that.”
Ben is considering whether to change his name to his mother’s new married name, Tompsett.
Since his half-sister Tiffany has children, the pair have welcomed a new extended family into their lives.
“Tiffany has two children and I’ve since discovered that I also have an older sister who had been given up for adoption who also has kids of her own.
“So I’m an uncle, which is pretty cool, and I didn’t even know.”
And Ben and his partner’s five children now have a nanna and cousins.
“The kids are just excited as I am.”
Ms Tompsett, Ben and Krissy have decided to get matching tattoos to link them forever; three owls at last reunited side by side on a perch.
“Now Mum calls me every second day. It’s nice to have that kind of a relationship with her,” Ben said.
“It’s sort of like she’s risen from the grave. I still have to pinch myself to know it’s real.”
