DAVID'S MISSING PIECE: ‘Clarinda's changed my life'

THE TV STAR GETS AN A-PLUS FROM THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL!

- Rebecca Barry Hill

David Lomas has made a career out of finding important people in others’ lives. Now, with partner Clarinda Franklin by his side, he’s found the missing person in his own.

“It’s just a feeling of absolute happiness and contentment,” says the David Lomas Investigates host, sitting side by side with Clarinda, a teacher and school principal, at her home in Devonport. “I don’t quite understand why Clarinda would like me, but we just get on. I find it quite remarkable.”

Clarinda laughs at this – there are many attributes that drew her to David, his empathy and voice among them, although she confesses that his fame wasn’t one of them. They met when David was working on Lost & Found, but not being much of a TV watcher, she hadn’t even heard of the show nor its predecessor Missing Pieces, in which the investigative journalist hunts down long-lost family members, sometimes tracking them all over the world.

“It’s quite refreshing,” tells David, “because a lot of people do recognise me and it was nice to meet Clarinda who knew nothing of me but took me for who I was.”

It turns out that on this side of the bridge, Clarinda is arguably better known than TV star David – for the past 20 years, she’s been the principal of Hauraki Primary in Takapuna, and David says it’s not unusual for the couple to bump into students.

“Crikey, you walk around this neighbourhood and every second kid remembers Clarinda,” says David. “The amazing thing is that she remembers just about everyone’s names instantly, even if she taught them 20 to 30 years ago.”