It's a kind of magic! - DAVID FINDS HIS MISSING PIECE

After years of reuniting lost loved ones, it was only time before the beloved investigator found someone special to share his life

David Lomas is a sucker for a happy outcome. It’s what drives him to do the work he does, tracking down long-lost family members on his TV show David Lomas Investigates.

It’s also why he prefers romcoms to thrillers or mysteries. “Give me a Hugh Grant movie any day or one with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan,” he laughs. “I like happy endings, although they make me cry all the time.”

And it’s why the journalist is over the moon to have found his own special someone, Auckland primary school principal Clarinda Franklin.

The couple have now been together for five years and David still pinches himself that Clarinda is part of his life. He’s adept at keeping his emotions in check on TV, even when faced with reunions that have viewers in floods of tears, but when it comes to talking about Clarinda, he wears his heart on his sleeve.

“I ask myself often, ‘How did this happen? Why am I so in love with her?’ And I can’t explain it – we just get on so well. It’s amazing.”

The pair were first introduced in a bar after the friends each of them had gone to meet turned out to know each other. David says the attraction was instant, but being the investigative journalist that he is, he did some checking up on Clarinda as soon as he got home.

“It hadn’t come up in conversation whether she was available, so I had to make sure she was a single woman,” he smiles. “I was very happy to learn that she was.”

David, 69, had been on his own after the death of his partner Sue Donald – who was also a producer and researcher on his shows – in 2012.