Missing Pieces - First Episode

....Bob was doing the loving, affectionate thing with Ashlee, and it's like whoa: don't know how the kids are dealing with this, because they never had that.

– Noeline Freer (whose two sons were abandoned by Bob Wood) fights emotions while watching old home video footage of her ex-partner with his new family

It was quite emotional, being an only child, finding another sibling. He seemed really friendly and happy to see me.

– Ashlee Woods on meeting half-brother Gareth in Australia for the first time

It was interesting to see...someone that you don't really know, who's your Dad . . . I could see similarities in our behaviours, just from watching a few minutes of video.

– Martin Freer on watching home movie footage of his dad, who abandoned his family

I've bought little piggy banks for them for their sixth birthday, books for their tenth birthday, jewellery for their thirteenth, watches each for their eighteenth, and a special little memento expressing how much I love them for their 21st. So they're all wrapped up and ready to go, should I not be there to give them to them myself.

– Kelly Traille on planning ahead for her twins, should she not recover from her cancer, late in this episode

We had that massive adoption boom in the 60s and 70s and then we have the poverty issue, economic refugees from marriages, fathers who leave families and don't have anything to do with them because they can't afford the child support and everything else that comes with it. So many New Zealanders are almost anonymous in Australia. They're not on electoral rolls, they don't own properties because they are not wealthy enough to do so and with the demise of the home telephone number, they're not on the phone so it's very, very easy for someone to absolutely vanish in Australia.

– Producer David Lomas on the difficulties of locating trans-Tasman blood relatives, The TV Guide, 11 September 2011

The reunion days are just crazy. They’re only two hours, or two-and-a-half hours, of work but it’s just frenetic because there’s only two of us on the road. You’re in the zone so much; I do get emotional. Fortunately, though, the camera’s always on — if you’re the target — you. But even when watching it back, I’m gobsmacked at how emotional I get. You just realise how important it is to all those people.

– Producer David Lomas on his 'looking for lost family' shows like Missing Pieces, Lost and Found and David Lomas Investigates, The NZ Herald, 10 December 2023

I feel sorry for her. I think it must be awfully hard to lose both your parents at a very young age. I haven't got a daughter...I'd love to have a daughter, you know, if she wants to accept me as part of the family as well as the boys, that would be lovely.

– Noeline Freer welcomes her ex-partner's daughter Ashlee to her family