Brother meets sis he never knew of after a 40yr hunt

TOGETHER Jenny, Karen and Sandra with Don

AFTER spending 40 years searching for the brother she had never met, Karen Mcleod had almost given up hope of ever finding him.

But now the pair, who live on opposite sides of the world, have met for the first time. And as they hugged, Karen and Don, struggled to contain their emotions.

Karen said: “There were lots of tears. We just wrapped our arms around one another and didn’t want to let go. I’d spent four decades looking for my brother, so I vowed never to lose him again.” Although Don did not even know Karen and his other two sisters existed, they knew about him and the heartbreaking circumstances in which he was separated from his family more than 70 years ago.

After their mum split from Don’s dad when he was four, the father was awarded custody, as the courts allegedly frowned on the fact Hilda had embarked on an affair.

She and her new partner, Geoff, who she later married had three daughters, Jennifer, Karen and Sandra, but she always spoke of her ‘little boy with the mop of ginger hair”.

Four weeks after Sandra was born, Hilda was taken ill and died from a deep vein thrombosis, aged only 32.

Struggling to cope, Geoff advertised for a housekeeper, Barbara, who took on the role of the three young girl’s stepmum.

Karen, 64, said: “As I was preparing to leave home at 18, my dad told me all about the brother I never knew I had.

“I was stunned and desperate to find him but had no idea where to begin.”

After years scouring phone books, one county at a time, and writing to TV shows, she had all but given up when she had a hunch that he may have gone to Australia.

She found a match in telephone directories Down Under and plucked up the courage to dial.

A bewildered Don did not know he had any siblings and both were overcome with emotion.

Karen’s breast tumour diagnosis in 2018 prompted Don to fly across the world and they met for the first time.

Now cancer free, Karen added: “Seeing my brother in the flesh was just amazing.”

YOUNGER DAYS Sisters as kids with relative