MISSING . . . . . . AND FOUND
THE DAILY MAIL offers the 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 and a tale of people reunited. Produced in conjunction with the voluntary tracing service Searching For A Memory, run by Gill Whitley.
READER Brian O’Brien, who is 68 and lives in Rugby, writes: ‘I’d like to know if you could help with a search that my friend Ian Smith and I are doing. We are from a group of some 90 apprentices taken on in September 1971 by the then East Midlands Electricity Board to commence our training in various trades associated with the company. Our training took place in Wollaton, Nottingham. ‘In a group photo taken at the time, we’ve been able to identify almost all of the lads. We made contact with about 30 of them, resulting in enjoyable reunions. But we’d like to find more. ‘The lads arrived at the training centre from all across the EMEB area of operations. Recent school-leavers, many had never journeyed away on their own.
LAST September, Dave Dibb, 68, of Taunton in Somerset was hoping to be reunited with an old friend. ‘Paul Lawday and were close friends as schoolboys, when we played football together for Sneyd Park junior team in Bristol. We had the honour of representing our team when we were awarded the Sporting Team of the Year Award in 1970. We went to two different grammar schools in Bristol, so we also played against each other for our respective sides. We used to socialise together, too, but we lost contact in the late 1970s.’ Dave added that during a recent house move, he came ‘We had great times together. One of venues where we had fun was at the Dancing Slipper, a disco in West Bridgford, where a big bunch of us would across a Beatles record with Paul’s hand-written name on it — ‘It’s probably about time it was returned to him!’ gather twice a week. Our apprenticeships went on for four years, and later were mostly undertaken at our local EMEB district offices.’
Dave updates us: ‘I am thrilled to let you know that Paul and I have been reconnected after nearly half a century!’