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. ‘AS A student at Stirling University,’ writes Brian Eastty, ‘I was a member of a dining club, but nothing like the Bullingdon, either in manners (Stirling Amateur Gourmet Society always left a restaurant exactly as we’d found it) or in numbers.
‘There were only four of us, and I’d love to track down the two I’ve long since lost contact with so we could have a reunion.
‘The first, Roland Paterson, graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1981. He came from Ayr and went to Ayr Grammar School.
‘On leaving Stirling, he trained as an actor and was last heard of as a compere at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, appearing in the BBC fly-onthe-wall documentary about it in 1997.
‘He was also a freelance comedy scriptwriter working for Jasper Carrott, and Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones with a writing partner called Jonathan Crowe (I think!).
‘The other member was Steve Hunt, who graduated in psychology in 1981. His family home was in Godalming. He came to Stirling from Charterhouse via Godalming Sixth Form College. He went on to do postgraduate study at Cambridge.
‘I lost contact with him after that, but I heard he had qualified as a child psychiatrist and was working in a hospital in the Fens.
‘I am 57 now and live in Southend. I’m an actor, but I spend more time working in my day job at a school as a careers teacher.’
A FEW months ago, Maureen Gill, of Buckinghamshire, wrote to us with this delightful tale: ‘I would love to find some old school friends and discover how their lives have panned out.
‘In my final year at Glenwood School in Castlemilk, Glasgow, we were selected to make a pioneering trip to Moscow in 1962.
‘We were the first Scottish schoolchildren to make such a visit to the USSR.
‘The trip made a lasting impact on me. I went on to work in Siberia in palliative care for 16 years, sowing the seeds of hospice care in many parts of Russia.
‘I was especially friendly with Morag McGrath, Dorothy McWee and Sheila Stewart, who also made the trip.
‘We heard Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, speak, and danced the twist with Russian schoolchildren at their Young Pioneers’ camp.’
Jim Green sent us this message: ‘A friend emailed me from Spain. I was on that bus to Moscow and I remember Maureen.’
Then we heard Maureen was put in touch with Morag, who is now teaching at a university in Australia.
And, separately, we managed to reunite her with her old friends from Glasgow, Keith and Ann Shankland, now living in Oxfordshire.
‘A big thank you for putting us back in touch. We’ve made contact and hope to meet in the near future,’ writes Keith.