Man snatched from moving train as a baby reunites with brother decades later on ITV

A man who was snatched from his mother's arms as a baby has been reunited with the brother he last saw more than half a century ago, in an emotional meeting filmed for the ITV programme Long Lost Family.

Peter Macdonald, 58, said he was about ten weeks old when his father intercepted a train at Preston Railway Station and took him from his mother's arms as she fled to London with Peter and his two-year-old brother, Trevor Schwartz. Peter said his father later placed him in foster care before he was six months old and he was not allowed to see his birth mother or brother again.

Trevor, now 61 and based in east London, told the programme that their mother had often spoken about Peter but had not discussed him in detail. As she became gravely ill, Trevor said she urged him to "find Peter" and expressed regret that she had not returned for him. She died in 2008.

The reunion was set in motion when Peter's daughter, Chloe, wrote to Long Lost Family seeking help to locate her father's brother. Researchers identified several possible matches and a man who had grown up knowing of a younger brother named Peter came forward. The meeting, captured for broadcast, shows both men becoming tearful and remarking on their family resemblance.

Peter, a painter and decorator who lives in Accrington, Lancashire, said he discovered he had been fostered at age seven and grew curious about his birth family in adolescence. He later found documents referring to a boy named Trevor and attempted to trace his father. Peter said his relationship with his father, now deceased, lacked "chemistry" and that the elder man did not know where Trevor had gone, though he recounted the episode at Preston station that separated the family.

Speaking on camera, Peter described the moment he learned his brother had been found. "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,'" he said.

Trevor said their mother had not spoken about Peter often, but that when she became ill she opened up and told him she had regretted not going back for her child. "She never forgot you... She did say to me: 'Find him, look for him.' A week or so later she passed away," he said.

Long Lost Family, presented by Nicky Campbell, assists people in tracing relatives and has been responsible for reuniting individuals separated by adoption, migration or family breakdown. The programme's researchers use a combination of archival records, public appeals and sometimes DNA testing to locate missing relatives.

Peter said he felt compassion for his mother and reflected on the trauma of having an infant taken from her: "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."

The filmed reunion, due to be broadcast this week, captures the brothers meeting after decades apart and beginning to rebuild a relationship after a sudden separation in infancy. The programme does not disclose further details about the family's subsequent contact beyond the recorded reunion.