The real-life inspiration behind BBC's Lost Boys and Fairies

Daf James says the experience of adopting two children changed his world so profoundly that he "couldn’t not write about it". He describes the journey as "beautiful, extraordinary, remarkable" and says he faced a "complex well of emotions" on the road to parenthood with his husband.

For the Welsh writer, representation was also at the forefront of his mind when he sat down to write his new BBC series Lost Boys and Fairies, inspired by his real-life experience of gay adoption. The three-parter is billed as the "tender, glittering" story of queer club performer Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and partner Andy (Fra Fee) as they try to become parents.

READ MORE: BBC Lost Boys and Fairies: cast, what it's about and how many episodes there are

The Cardiff-set series begins with the couple being interviewed by Jackie, their social worker at the first stage of the adoption process. Flashbacks then reveal how they managed to get to this point - but Gabriel has demons to fight in the form of decades of shame about being gay in a society hostile to his sexuality and a difficult relationship with his own father.

Daf says: "My husband and I first adopted eight years ago now. When we went through this process my world changed forever as a human, but also as an artist. I felt like I hadn't seen adoption represented authentically on screen, so it's something I feel really passionate about bringing to the television.

"That first year after adopting my kids was a challenging period because I went through so many emotions and feelings. My identity completely shifted; my frames of reference in this world shifted. I wanted to be able to put all of those things into a story."

The writer and his husband adopted two children under the age of six and have since adopted a third. He says the resulting BBC series is packed with themes and emotions that "resonate with my life", but he stresses that isn't autobiographical. He also believes it will resonate with all.

He said: "I think it's so important that we get to see these minority perspectives in the mainstream. It's my identity: I’m a queer, Welsh-speaking Dad. This is my normal. But also, though it's a story about gay adoption specifically, I think these are themes that resonate with everyone.

"Everyone knows what it is to be a child. Many people contemplate if they want to become parents or not; and we've all been children to somebody. Also, I'm a huge advocate for adoption, it's changed my life completely. If this story can encourage more people to look into it, I think that would be brilliant thing."

In Lost Boys and Fairies, Gabriel has to face painful childhood trauma during the adoption process. Daf says he also found there was "unprocessed stuff" from his own life that he had to deal with before becoming a parent.

He says: "One of the other really crucial themes is one of trauma and shame - specifically gay shame. Thankfully we're living in a world now where gay people can adopt and get married. These are all things that when I was a kid, during the time of Section 28, I wouldn't have believed were even possible.

"When I got married to my husband, standing there was so deeply moving because we could now speak ‘the love that dare not speak its name’ in front of our community and family – our tribe – it was just extraordinary. We exist in a space now where we feel relatively safe within our own communities. But it's easy to forget what it was like as a child growing up with the trauma of thinking you are an abomination.

"I was also very religious at the time, so when you grow up as a teenager thinking you are inherently evil or wrong and you can't share those thoughts, it has an insidious effect on who you are and what your identity becomes. This is something I'm exploring with the character Gabriel - why he ends up in quite dark places and some of his behaviours.

"It's showing how toxic shame has had an impact on who he has become and his identity. And of course, when you become a parent, you are made to revisit who you are as a child.

"Certainly for me, when I first became a parent, all of this unprocessed stuff came out. I had to deal with it in order for me to be better equipped to deal with a child who themselves has lived through some incredible trauma. Gabriel needs to process his own trauma to be able to take on and deal with Jake's.

"This is how two ‘lost boys’ essentially find healing through each other and through the love that grows between the both of them."

Lost Boys starts on BBC One on Monday, June 3 at 9pm. All three episodes are available now on BBC iPlayer.