Dive into the past

Paralympian Ellie Simmonds sets out to find her birth mother

- HANNAH DAVIES, NATASHA HOLT, TESS LAMACRAFT, IAN MACEWAN

NEW FACTUAL

Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family

Thursday, 9pm, ITV1

Five-time gold-medal-winning Paralympian swimmer and Strictly star Ellie Simmonds credits her close, loving family with her success, saying that, thanks to them, she has never let her dwarfism get in the way of achieving her dreams.

But what her army of fans don’t know is that she was placed for adoption at just two weeks old, because her birth mother felt she couldn’t cope with her disability.