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.
‘I WOULD like to trace Vicky and Caroline Gray,’ writes Martine Spacey. ‘My sister Mardell and I knew them as children in the Seventies when our parents were friends. When we girls were in our teens, we lost touch. I have tried to make contact but their names may have changed. They had a younger brother, Matthew.
‘I believe they may have gone to Devon after 1977. We used to go to their house at Shelf, near Bradford, often, and to their grandparents’ bungalow. This photo, I believe, was taken at Bolton Abbey, North Yorkshire, when we were still in primary school. ‘My maiden name was Travis and we lived in Brighouse, West Yorkshire. My mum and dad were Marlene and Michael and their parents were Angela and Jonny. I think my dad and Jonny met as RAF conscripts in the Fifties.
‘When Mardell and I reminisce about our childhood, the Grays often come up.
‘It would be nice to find them again, and to know if they are well and have done all right for themselves.’ IN APRIL we told of 63-yearold retired lecturer David Salmon’s search for his old friend Ian Sutherland.
David wrote: ‘ Ian was educated at Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire.
‘ We were engineering apprentices together in the early Seventies and shared a flat near Leeds. We had a full life, watching football and going to rock concerts, pubs and discos.
‘In 1977 we set off hitchhiking to Australia through Europe and the Middle East, but Ian became ill in Iran and was repatriated to England.
‘I went on to Australia, while Ian settled in Harrogate, married and had a son. But he went to California and Holland after his marriage broke up. I last saw him in the Eighties when he visited me in the Forest of Dean on his Harley-Davidson.’
Sophie Clayton, alumni relations officer at Giggleswick School, told us Ian is living in France with his wife Andrea, and provided an email address.
David said: ‘Ian seems to be living well in France and still has the same HarleyDavidson motorbike but says it is gathering dust in the back of his workshop.
‘We shall keep in touch.’