A north-east family has had an emotional meeting with a brother they never knew they had – 61 years after he was abandoned in a Birmingham cinema.
Rob Weston was left in an Odeon toilet in 1956 after his mother decided she could not afford to care for him.
The Plymouth lecturer began searching for his lost relatives 46 years ago without any success.
However, a match in a national DNA database sparked a chain of events which led to him finally meeting his family.
Mr Weston has now travelled north to meet his half-brother Tommy Chalmers, who lives in Burghead, half-sister Pat McBain, from Banff, and Turiff half-brother Frankie Chalmers.
The siblings share the same father, Charlie Chalmers, who left the family home in the 1950s to work in England before returning to Aberdeenshire.
Yesterday Tommy Chalmers, 58, explained the uncanny resemblance Mr Weston has to their dad.
He said: “I went with my sister to Inverness Airport to pick him up. I didn’t need to ask if it was him, he was the spitting double of my dad.
“It was very emotional. We were speaking for a couple of months building up to it, but it was very different to see him for the first time.
“You can’t really put it into words what the feeling was like.”
Mr Chalmers added: “We always suspected our father might have had another family in England, but it was never spoken of.”
Mr Weston is now using the same DNA database to track down clues that could lead to him discovering the identity of his mother.
Searches have narrowed down the possibilities to those with surnames O’Brien, Deaton and Aston.
During his visit north of the border, Mr Weston met up with his four surviving siblings. And the lecturer is now planning another trip to the north-east in the summer to meet more of his new-found relatives.
He said: “It’s been amazing. I was kind of breathless and speechless when I met them for the first time.
“All of the buzzwords about positivity were firing off in my head at the same time – just to have my brother and sister there in front of me.
“It was almost like we picked up where we left off, even though we had never met. We just talked like we had known each other for 40 years, it was uncanny.”
A father’s letter
Rob Weston’s introduction into the Chalmers family has cast new light on his father’s dying words.
A letter penned by Charlie Chalmers, and only opened after his death in 1996, hinted at possibly another mystery sibling south of the border.
The family is concentrating their efforts on the English town of Rugby, where the father worked during the 1950s.
And the clan is hopeful the DNA database could once again be used to make connections with distant relatives they are yet to meet.
Yesterday Tommy Chalmers explained that the letter written by his father had faded into the past before the words took on new meeting when he spoke to Mr Weston.
He said: “It was 21 years ago. Like all things, the memory starts to go and nobody can really remember what was in it.
“There was mention of somebody called Lawrie Larry. We’re not sure if that’s Rob’s real name from before he was discovered – it could be an older brother or sister or a clue about his real mum.”