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Actor Vicky McClure was watched by millions when she played Detective Inspector Kate Fleming, tracking down corrupt coppers in Line of Duty. Now, Vicky wants to solve some mysteries in her family tree.

Vicky starts with her late grandmother on her dad’s side, her Nonna Jean. She knows that Jean was given up by her family when she was a child and wants to find out why. From her birth certificate, Vicky learns that Nonna Jean was born in Grimsby and that her parents were called Ruby Winifred and Thomas Compton. In Grimsby, Vicky learns that Thomas Compton worked as a steward on a steamship and had three children before Nonna Jean was born. As Vicky examines Thomas’s movements from shipping lists, it becomes clear that he couldn’t have been Nonna Jean’s father, as he was in Canada when she would have been conceived.

Vicky wonders if the reason her Nonna Jean was given up was because Thomas wasn’t her biological father but wants to see if she can find out any more information. She has a lead – Nick, the son of Nonna Jean’s older half-sister. Vicky goes to see Nick but discovers that his mother never mentioned her half-sister Jean to him. Nick does have his grandparents’ letters from the time though. As Vicky reads the letters, she realises that the couple were already struggling financially before her Nonna Jean was born, and there are hints that Thomas realised that his wife, Ruby, Vicky’s great-grandmother, had had an extramarital relationship. Vicky knows her grandmother Jean suffered at the hands of her foster parents but went on to become the most loving mother and grandmother. Vicky is glad she now knows the truth behind why her grandmother was given up.

There is another family story that Vicky wants to get to the bottom of which concerns her mum’s granddad, Vicky’s great-grandfather, Harry Millership. The family knows that Harry died as a Japanese prisoner of war in World War II. Vicky’s mum, Carol, has a small black and white photo of a wooden cross marking his grave and tells Vicky that she was always told it was somewhere in Japan. Vicky also discovers that Harry was a coal miner in Yorkshire before the war.

Vicky goes to meet former miner Pete Wordsworth at one of the last surviving pits in Yorkshire. Census returns reveal that Harry worked in the mines from the age of 14. Vicky hears about the dark and dangerous conditions that her great-grandfather worked in, and that he was in the pits for about 18 years before the outbreak of World War II.

To find out what happened to Harry, Vicky meets Dr Yasmin Khan and is shown Harry’s service record. In late 1941, Harry and his regiment were sent to Singapore. On 8 December 1941, barely a month after Harry had arrived, the Japanese attacked, and by mid-February 1942, the British had surrendered. The Japanese took 130,000 prisoners of war, including Vicky’s great-grandfather. Vicky is astonished to discover that Harry was taken from Singapore to a Japanese POW camp in Taiwan.

Following in her great-grandfather’s footsteps, Vicky travels over 6,000 miles to Taiwan. To homebody Vicky, it feels a long way from Nottingham, and she can only imagine how harrowing it must have been for her great-grandfather as a POW. Vicky meets historian Aaron Moore near Keelung Port, where Harry and his fellow POWs disembarked after a horrendous journey from Singapore. Aaron explains to Vicky that the men would have been transported packed into an airless hold, with little food and water and some even losing their lives to dysentery. Vicky then learns that Harry was used as forced labour in a copper mine.

Vicky visits the now disused mine and hears about the inhumane conditions the men were forced to work in. She also learns how Harry died, falling ten metres down a hole in the mine. Visibly moved, she takes some comfort from the fact that it must have been a quick death and that Harry didn’t have to endure working in the mine for long.

Vicky finishes her journey at a war memorial, where she finds her great-grandfather’s name inscribed among the many others. Although she has found it hard, Vicky feels her discoveries have been life-changing and expresses how incredibly proud she is of her great-grandfather.