[Arneldo]

DAVINA McCall opened her heart as she delved into the harrowing details of her traumatic childhood.
The Big Brother presenter told how alcoholic mum Florence Kock would drink spirits for breakfast and once left her alone at a nightclub aged 12.

Davina, 41, went on an emotional journey to Paris for TV genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? - and viewers will see her reunited with her long-lost French relatives.


Clubbing

The usually tough BB host broke down in tears meeting her mum's cousin Francoise Hennion and half-sister Caroline from four-times wed Florence's first marriage.

Mum-of-three Davina, who herself battled a cocaine and heroin addiction for six years, faced up to her past - recalling Florence's breakfast tipple and the nightspot drama.

She says: "My mum was hot. She was a show stopper.

"Not great when you're a teenager and your mother is hotter than you are, or when she goes clubbing with you and leaves you in the club. I was 12. She left me in a nightclub on my own, looking like a lamb dressed as mutton - young, trying to look old.

"She drank a lot. And from an early age I knew she was smoking 'magic' cigarettes. She called them 'magic' but I knew exactly what they were from about eight.

"I knew the lady at the café down the road very well because Mum would always go there for a drink in the morning. She used to have a double Ricard for breakfast.

The barman would go, 'You are alone, Madame, a double Ricard?' and my mum would go, 'Yes. And?'" Davina, whose childhood was split between France and England, added: "Going to Paris does feel a bit like going home, it evokes an enormous amount of memories - the smell, the vibe and the feel.

"My mother died last year and we were sort of estranged. It's just very sad. The sad thing about her passing away is that she's taken a lot of information and history with her about that side of the family.

"I've lost touch with a lot of my French family, so I really feel half a person in a funny sort of way. It was weird seeing Francoise because there is obviously a very strong family gene and she looks quite like my mum, except without the nose job. She was very familiar. It was kind of comforting to see her."

Davina, who did not speak to her mum for eight years before she died and did not go to her funeral, told how her passing played a part in signing up for the ancestry show.

Davina - who partly lived with dad Andrew and his mum Pippy after Florence abandoned her aged three - said she felt incomplete until meeting her French family.

She said: "I didn't just split in two, I had two countries.

"There was warm, loving, cuddly, secure England and then there was my mum. Unbelievably exciting to be around, if you're not her child.


Illegitimate

"I would change to adapt to my circumstances, like you do as a child to survive. So I feel like my life split in two and as if this would bring it back together again."

She added: "My mum was a very exciting and lovely person. She shouldn't have had kids because she was still a big kid herself."

Davina also learned that one of her ancestors was rumoured to be an illegitimate son of George IV who left his family with huge debt when he died. Meanwhile, her French great grandfather was the head of the police force.

Who Do You Think You Are is on next Wednesday at 9pm.

Sun