Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - David Lomas Investigates Jono & Ben

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

We chat to David Lomas ahead of his new show back for its 16th season!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Now, David Lomas investigates, you've spent a lot of time over your career joining family members, long lost family members. I feel like I'm looking at my dad. Well, maybe. You should investigate that. Do we get Ancestry.com onto it, David? What's happening, mate? You won't look into that one, David. Put that down in your notebook. You only said dad. How you been, mate? Oh, very good. Yeah, working hard. Well, congratulations on the show. You were just saying 16 years you've been doing various versions of this particular show.

Yeah, I started. I wasn't going to be on telly. I was just going to produce the thing. Really? And then the first story we did, we got into an awkward situation. So I said, film me. And then I was stuck. What was the awkward situation? Oh, there was a guy and we were trying to track him down. We knew who he was, but we couldn't find how to get hold of him. So we found his son. And his son wouldn't give me his father's number until I told him why. And I said, I can't tell you why because it's personal to your father.

Yeah. And it was a sort of standoff. And we're sort of filming because you don't want to tell the son oh your dad had another child and we're not going to Yeah, you don't want to be the one to break that news You must feel a huge sense of responsibility when it does come to that

like how do you tippy toe around those very sensitive issues because I mean in a lot of cases people don't want to know It's remarkable though I mean you know the number of people these days who are very happy that he or she has come out the woodwork but um when we first started there

was a lot more reluctance so you must be running multiple investigations at the same time oh because your head would be bloody spinning i'm trying to find deborah's buddy and you know mike's over here how many get a call from someone you'd be like trying to piece that together who that's from how many of you got on the go at any one time? Realistically, probably 30 or 40. Really? Yeah. I mean, some of them are very long term.

I mean, and lots of them, you're just not going to get there. I mean, you know, if you, we've got one, for instance, somebody's looking for someone in Angola. And we sort of get that going and you try and look, but you can't do anything really. You've just got to rely on other people to do it. So you've got lots of little projects like that always in the background. Yeah. He's obviously got a very curious mind, I imagine,

investigating. Do you use this in your real life? Like someone opens their car door into your car in the car park, you're like, right, I'm going to find the bugger that did that. Are you looking at that? Do you ever stop investigating? Yeah. Well well it's so funny you should say that somebody um i rode a motor scooter of vespa and somebody um whacked and knocked it over and um the person left their number plate

yeah not the person who did it oh someone else you're all right lois is investigating this one all right here we go to the bottom of that one? This is personal. This is personal. Because it must get quite tiring, people coming up to you all the time going, hey, mate, can you find this person for me or investigate this for me? I imagine you never switch off from the job. Yeah, but you're always getting stopped by somebody who tells this amazing story. A woman sat down with me a while back in a cafe,

and she says, I've never told another person this, but I had a child when I was 18 or something like that. And she was, you know, mid-60s, maybe 70. And, you know, she just sat down and talked about it. And it was just an incredible conversation. And I felt quite honoured that she did. It must be really rewarding. As, you know, it's a TV show, sure, but it's real people. And you're connecting real people. For you, it must be really rewarding. It's a TV show, sure, but it's real people.

When you're connecting real people, for you it must be really rewarding to do and to find these connections. Yeah, I obviously feel very privileged to do it. I mean, almost public goods sort of service. It's fantastic to do. What we really enjoy too is when you actually do get them both and you get them to walk together to meet each other. You're starting them from about three or four Ks out, David.

It's a big long walk to when they actually do connect, don't they? Are they like, because they might have to do multiple takes, by the end of the day they're like, oh, jeez, David, mate, you've made us, definitely done our 10,000 steps. Well, yeah, we do do the long walk.

That's so, you know, the cameraman's got time to get all the shots. But we do try and do retakes. By the end of it, people, you know, say, what, do I have to hug him again? I'm sick of the person already. Actually, I thought of you over Christmas time because I was at my mum's place up north and I was trying to do a puzzle that she had sitting around for a bit. And I went to do it, spent three days on it, and two pieces were gone.

I was like, David Lomas, missing pieces, puzzle edition. Like, mum's like, I don't know where they've gone. Like, could you look into that for me? Didn't you just get a little piece of paper and cut it out? Should have done that. So you're solving that one for me as well. Socks too, the bloody socks that go missing in the washing too, David. Hey, congratulations.

15, oh sorry, 16 years on the show is a remarkable achievement and it's a very important show to be doing. So congratulations on everything you've done, David, and appreciate your time. Thank you.