‘We’d just be relieved to know that mum’s okay’

FAMILY’S DESPERATE SEARCH FOR WOMAN WHO HAS NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE GETTING ON A TRAIN 20 YEARS AGO AT MANCHESTER PICCADILLY

IT was a journey Ellen Coss Brown had travelled many times before – a train from Manchester Piccadilly to Holyhead, then back home to Dublin by ferry. As her sister Bertha waved her off from the station platform on a chilly November afternoon back in 1999, she thought little of it.

Sadly it was the last time her sister, or anyone else, would see Ellen.

That was 20 years ago, but Ellen’s family have never stopped looking for her.

The search for the missing mum, a Dubliner who had been staying on a Greater Manchester council estate shortly before she vanished, has spanned two countries and two decades.

At one point Ellen’s sister and son Peter Coss even travelled to Bournemouth to identify a body that turned out to be unrelated to them.

Last Sunday marked 20 years since Ellen’s disappearance.

And for Peter, who has just turned 50, his mum is always in his thoughts.

“I have seen a lot of things on television about people who have been missing for a long time,” he says.

“They often feel like they can’t get in touch with family because they are ashamed. “But if she’s still alive we would just be relieved she is okay and would just say to get in touch. “Or, if the worst has happened and anyone who knows her or has information, then please just get in touch with the police.” Ellen was 51 when she went missing.

She had been staying with her sister Bertha in Langley, Middleton.

The mum-ofone had been suffering from depression after the death of her mum and family say she was struggling.

Ellen Coss Brown’s son Peter

Nevertheless, it was out of character for Ellen to disappear and so, when she failed to return home to Dublin, her brothers Thomas and James called the police.

“Mum didn’t like to fly when she was going abroad so she would get the boat and train – it was a journey she had done for years,” Peter says.

“Bertha saw her off at the station.

I was called that evening because Thomas was expecting her home.

“She had been staying with Bertha for a couple of months, almost living with them for a while.

“My mum had some mental health issues. She felt like a change of scenery would help because she had been depressed.”

At the time Peter was living in