MISSING . . . and FOUND!
THE DAILY MAIL offers readers a unique opportunity to re-establish contact with long-lost relatives and friends. Each week, MONICA PORTER features the story of someone trying to find a missing loved one, as well as a tale of people reunited. This column is produced in conjunction with the voluntary tracing service, Searching For A Memory, run by Gill and John Whitley.
Christine henderson, nee Fish, writes on behalf of her 1958-61 intake at the northern Counties training College of Domestic science in hexham, northumberland.
‘Along with Brenda, ethel, Dorothy, Marianne and the rest of the former college friends who meet annually in hexham, we would love to find our missing classmate Kay Crompton, nee Wilson.
‘Kay would be 77 or 78 now and we would love her to come to a reunion so we can catch up.
‘she was living with her parents in seaham, Co. Durham, where they had a grocer’s shop on the corner of station road.
‘Most of us lived at college, though Kay used to go home at weekends to see her boyfriend.
‘Kay and i were in the advanced home management group. We had to manage our tutor’s flat for a week, making sure everything was scrupulously clean and sparkling. We selected the menus, and cooked, prepared and served the meals to her with trepidation. it was a fearful week because standards were justifiably high.
‘Kay married Christopher Crompton in seaham in 1969, and they had two or three daughters. Later, they moved to scotland and we lost contact.
‘After leaving college, i taught home management in Middlesbrough. i married a farmer and moved to saltburn-by-the-sea.’ in MArCh, we ran an item on George Ward, who wrote: ‘My search is for my best man, ian Alexander stuart. We met in 1956-57 when we worked for Potter rax, an engineering firm in islington, north London.
‘ian lived with his mum in the Caledonian road area and i lived at home with my parents in nearby Linton street.
‘he was dating Pam, who lived on a council estate in east Finchley and had several sisters. ian arranged a date for me with a girl they knew called Joyce.
‘Friday evenings, we’d all go to nornie Dwyer’s dance school, which was upstairs at the Winchester Pub on Archway road.
‘ian and Pam’s relationship did not last, but Joyce and i got married at st James’s Church in islington on June 2, 1962.
‘As ian had been responsible for our meeting, we invited him to be best man. We moved to hackney in 1963 and then on to hainault a few years later, after which we sadly lost touch with ian.
‘this photo is of us on holiday in Linlithgow in 1960. Like me, he must be in his mid-70s now.’
happily, we reunited the old pals in time for George’s wedding anniversary this month — though only at long distance, as we learned from ian’s daughter, nicola stuart, that he had moved to Australia in 1974.