Latest news with #FriendsReunited
Irish Times
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Our Song by Anna Carey: A romantic and heart-warming love story
Our Song Author : Anna Carey ISBN-13 : 978-1399742382 Publisher : Hachette Books Ireland Guideline Price : £15.99 In the noughties, the now-defunct school reunion website Friends Reunited was credited with rekindling teenage romances and opening the Pandora's box of wistful memories. (It was simultaneously castigated as a marriage wrecker, but that's another story). Anna Carey's charming and tender first novel for adults is a clever friends-reunited-type story, yet the second-chance nostalgia of it is founded on something far more interesting and rewarding than sentimental curiosity. Laura McDermott gave up her dreams of turning music into a career, because that's what grown-ups do. But Tadhg Hennessy, her old flame and former college bandmate, didn't. Fifteen-odd years later, she is working at an ad agency and he has become a wealthy, stadium-playing star, adored for his heartfelt love songs and 'sweet but spiky guitar pop'. [ Anna Carey: I needed to remember what it felt like to make stupid romantic choices. So I unearthed my teenage diaries ] Laura's fiance, Dave, believes being in a college band is like playing five-a-side football: 'You do it for fun, but you know you're never going to play for Real Madrid.' Yet, once you've imagined yourself on the pitch at the Bernabéu or on stage at Glastonbury, a fragment of the dream lingers, even if – as in Laura's case – you don't consciously realise it. READ MORE Just as Laura is blindsided by being made redundant not long after breaking up with Dave and moving out of their shared flat, she gets an unexpected email: Tadhg wants to discuss a song they wrote together years earlier. When they meet, it soon becomes clear that an incomplete song is the least of their unfinished business. The romantic and heart-warming love story that follows is given added depth by Carey's nuanced exploration of creative endeavour, and how the joy and exhilaration of creativity can become dulled by the demands of life – or slip away entirely. The reader meets Laura at many ages, from her school days in 1999 through to 2019, and one of this book's many pleasures is how authentically she matures from shy teenager to warm, witty adult. Carey's pop-culture references are spot-on, and the writing is shot through with self-deprecating humour and honesty. When 17-year-old Laura first meets Tadhg, she reflects on how lovely it is to have a proper crush, because 'it adds a pinch of glitter to everyday life'. The same goes for Our Song.
Metro
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Metro
Long lost love and bitter breakups - the story behind the OG social network
25 years ago, tweeting was something only birds did, an influencer was not yet a job title, and Facebook could be mistaken for something that might happen if you fell asleep while reading. Social media was very much in its infancy, but one groundbreaking website called Friends Reunited provided an early premonition of the power it would soon hold in our lives. Founded by spouses Steve and Julie Pankhurst and their friend Jason Porter in June 2000, Friends Reunited users could set up a profile by inputting their school and years of attendance to find anyone who overlapped. The UK-based platform truly appealed to our innate curiosity of 'I wonder what happened to them?' At its peak, Friends Reunited had three million users and, in 2005, the three founders sold it to ITV for £175million. Steve and Julie, each received £30 million, while Jason received £20 million. However, with new platforms such as Myspace and Facebook entering the social media circus, four years later, the site was sold to DC Thompson for just £25m in 2009. After those early, heady years of curiosity, Friends Reuinted finally logged out of our lives in 2016, with Steve announcing in a blog post that the 'sunset of an era' had taken hold. With only a handful of users and industry giants proving unbeatable, the website was over. Although the URL no longer exists, the evidence of its time online can still be found everywhere, from wholesome reunions and romances to a surge in divorces as bored husbands and wives connected with old flames. To mark 25 years since the launch of Friends Reunited, three people tell Metro how it wrecked and rekindled their relationships. 'In 2001, a good friend of mine asked me, 'Have you heard of Friends Reunited? It's really cool.' Intrigued to see what it was all about, I set up a profile. The next day, I got a message from Steve saying, 'I remember you'. We both went to the same school in the mid-80s, but to my knowledge, we'd never spoken as he was in the year below. I did know who he was, though, because he lived opposite my best friend. Soon, we were regularly chatting over email, and he constantly made me laugh. He admitted in one message that he'd had a big crush on me at school, which was flattering. After six weeks, I agreed to meet him at a local pub for a date. Three years before, I had unexpectedly become a single mother three weeks before giving birth to my son Ben, and hadn't had a serious relationship since, so I was quite nervous. I didn't know if I could trust anybody again. I recognised Steve straight away, but without wanting to sound horrible, I was very happy he didn't look like he did at school. Steve is like a fine wine and has got an awful lot more handsome. He's now 6 ft 2, and I'd always wanted a tall partner, so that was a tick too. We sat for hours in the corner of that pub talking. I came with baggage, so I knew it would take a certain someone to understand and not be jealous. Steve did that with ease. He was so lovely that my friends did say, 'I think Steve Jacobs is too nice for you'. In my 20s, that might have been the case, but I'd matured out of that phase of wanting bad boys, so we had a little kiss in the car park while saying goodbye. It was a whirlwind of lovely dates and fun holidays after that. I'd drop off Ben with his dad on his weekends and go straight to Steve's flat. He'd hand over a glass of wine and immediately run me a bath. A few months later, Steve met Ben, and that's when I realised he was a keeper. Ben even started calling Steve dad. Eleanor joined our family in February 2004, and then we got married in August, so we'll be celebrating 21 years soon. When we talk about how we met again on Friends Reunited, often people don't even know what we're talking about. But I'll always be grateful to the website because if it didn't exist, we might never have started speaking again, and we wouldn't have our wonderful life together. I just love him. I love his personality. I love his kindness. I love everything about him.' 'Everyone knew who Jo was because she was one of the prettiest girls at school. I always had a crush on her — I'd even watch from my window when she'd walk to her friend's house. I liked her, but felt like I didn't ever stand a chance. I didn't have many choices for girlfriends at school. In fact, I had none. I recently found my old diary, and in one entry, I describe bumping into Jo while I was at college. I was playing squash with my friends and saw Jo walk past the glass walls. She was an aerobics instructor, so she was leaving a class. I rushed out so I could chat with her. I wrote: 'Oh my god, best day ever, spoke to Jo for ages. She's so nice.' We checked Jo's diary from the same day, and I wasn't even mentioned. I didn't sign up to Friends Reunited to see Jo again, but was pleased when I found her profile, and very quickly got in touch. I'd had a few catch-ups on there, but none had lasted longer than five minutes, but with Jo, we couldn't stop talking. I hadn't met anyone I considered marrying before Jo, and I wasn't interested in having children at that point in my life, but she changed everything. At our wedding, I had to mention in my speech that we 're-met' on Friends Reunited. It took a while, but in the end, I got my dream girl.' 'Friends Reunited put the final nail in the coffin of my marriage just after my thirteenth wedding anniversary. The relationship had been on life support for many years. We had a young child and a home life which revolved around them. As a couple, we barely went out and had become friends at best. I was never bothered about looking up my old school friends or work colleagues, figuring that if I'd wanted to stay in touch, I would have. But my ex happily set up an account, filled in her details and began stalking old classmates. She started messaging one former friend who decided to set up a small reunion. This was in the late noughties, when the whole school reunion thing was having its heyday. In hindsight, it was incredibly naive not to have been the least bit concerned that my wife was meeting her childhood sweetheart for drinks, along with a few others, in a local pub. But none of us quite understood the power of social media back then. Friends Reunited allowed people a window to the past that had previously been closed. Now we can barely fathom a time when it wasn't easy to stay in touch with everyone, no matter where they are, or indeed to trace an ex-lover. I don't know what went on that night, but I can guess. She came home in the early hours, long after the pubs had shut, and merely said how great it had been to catch up on a few old faces the next morning. I asked who was there, she reeled off names, one of whom was her former first love. Her behaviour started to change almost immediately, small things, out of character. We'd never bothered locking our phones — this was pre-smartphone brick Nokias — or even carrying them around with us in the house. They stayed on the side in the kitchen. But now my wife carried her phone everywhere, the screen lock was on, and unlike before, it was permanently on silent. When the second 'reunion' was organised for the following week, my suspicions heightened. I had a gut feeling but felt bad about being suspicious, so I said nothing. Over the following weeks, she started to buy new clothes and going out more socially, once or twice a week. It was totally out of character, but I didn't want to look like a jealous husband, so even encouraged her. More Trending Around a month after the first reunion, she told me she wanted a separation. I was not surprised. She admitted she had been seeing her school sweetheart. Friends Reunited had undone thirteen years of marriage in around four weeks – although in fairness, the rot had set in long before. Initially, I was devastated. It felt like the future we'd planned had been taken away. I didn't want to split up for the sake of our child, but she was adamant; she wanted to be with this guy. Soon after, he left his wife, and she moved in with him. We kept everything friendly and divorced a year later. Today, she is still with him, living an equally humdrum life, while I met an amazing woman and have never been happier. So, by that regard, I owe Friends Reunited a debt of gratitude.' *Names have been changed Jo Jacob runs a professional home organiser business called Benella , and Steve Jacob founded Hometown Events . Do you have a story you'd like to share? Get in touch by emailing Share your views in the comments below. 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Telegraph
28-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
In 1977 we set off on a bike ride to India, but parted ways in Greece – 50 years on we met up
'The search is over – but why did you bother?' So chuckles Brian Parker as he embraces William Spencer – a friend with whom he cycled from Hemel Hempstead to Greece some 48 years ago, and who he hasn't seen since. There are laughs, hugs and hearty pats on the back between the two men – now 69 and 70 respectively – who in their later years have come to bear more than a passing resemblance. It's only a matter of moments before they begin reminiscing beneath the greying bank holiday skies, and deciding whether to head to the pub for lunch – an upgrade, both agree, on the two-franc Brie and bread they subsisted on in France while partway along an epic journey that began on June 11 1977. The original plan, which the duo hatched during their early 20s, was to cycle all the way from Hemel Hempstead to India. Brian turned back in Greece, but William ended up cycling all the way there, a decision that dramatically changed the course of his life. Almost half a century later, today's reunion only happened because, on May 10th of this year, during a visit over here from the United States where he now lives, William posted an online appeal to find Brian in the Facebook group Friends Reunited (UK). The response was astonishing, with thousands of people commenting and trying to assist in the hunt. Within 48 hours, Brian – alerted to the search via a friend of his wife's – posted a characteristically dry response: 'You've found me Bill. How are you?' Much has changed since the pair boarded their bikes all that time ago. Today, 'I think we would have passed each other on the street,' William admits. 'The disappearance of the hair changes everything.' The two men nod sagely, and decide not to begin an 'organ recital' of comparing their respective ailments to assess who has aged better. William is the louder and more open of the two, his accent altered a little by an American twang. Brian is more wry and understated. Both quickly agree that 'there seems to be an easy comfort between us', which has been steadily rebuilding since they spoke over the phone for the first time in so long a few weeks' back. William 'hung up and I was hit by this wave of affection for this person I hadn't seen for decades. Life's kind of amazing in that way, right?' Today was a pleasant reminder that some relationships are immune to the tests of time. William's first glimpse of that came a few weeks ago, following Brian's response to his post. 'My first reaction was 'Oh yes, that sounds just like Brian',' chuckles William. 'You do feel uncertain about meeting someone again after 48 years. Have they changed? Will we still have things to talk about? Will there be long silences?' Brian admits he was also apprehensive. 'Who's to say we'll get on? I ummed and ahhed about getting in touch. But once I actually spoke to Bill – sorry, he prefers William now! – and we caught up on work and our families, it felt comfortable.' 'He's the same lovely, soft-spoken guy I remembered,' says William of Brian. 'I'm overly wilful and a little too loud – that's why we went together really well.' Oddly, given the sheer ambition of that youthful plan, Brian confesses he wasn't actually much of a cyclist. 'I'd had bikes as a child, but riding on busy London roads wasn't particularly pleasant,' he explains. He met William through work after moving to Hemel Hempstead: they were both computer operators for ShellMex-BP. 'I think because he was keen on cycling, I bought a bike and we would go round together,' recalls Brian. For William, cycling was a sanctuary. 'I grew up in an alcoholic household,' he says. 'There was always a level of uncertainty and madness, so when I got my first bike at 11, it gave me remarkable freedom, and it settled and soothed me. It was the perfect antidote to childhood trauma.' He combined that love of cycling with a burgeoning wanderlust, cycling to France with his then-girlfriend Sharon. Then he hatched his plan to travel to his dream destination: India. 'When I was five years old, the Queen Mother came to visit our school, and we did projects to put on the wall for her to look at,' remembers William. 'I can still remember the black-and-white photo of a Bengal tiger I had in my project on India. It always intrigued me. In the Seventies, if you were seeking something other than a 9 to 5 job, that was the place to go.' But how on earth did he persuade Brian? 'I got roped in,' says Brian. 'It was over a few pints at the local pub. I was young, happy to tag along, and William could be very persuasive.' That's a fair assessment, agrees William. 'I may have coaxed him into it.' This was before the internet and smartphones, so planning wasn't easy. (Unlike today's meeting point near Westminster, chosen by ChatGPT.) 'I had a single large map that folded out showing the overland route to India,' says William. 'You can imagine there wasn't much detail. I also read a guidebook that opened with 'A year spent in India is worth 10 years of formal education in the West'.' Brian thinks they bought a Michelin road map so they could find quieter byroads to take. 'We must have plotted out a route because we told people they could write to us at particular towns,' he adds. William's mother, who was French, was a keen traveller too. 'She met my dad in Australia,' he explains. 'So she was all for it. She bought me a little hand trowel to use to bury my poo.' It sounds pretty courageous to me, but William puts their lack of fear down to 'youthful naïveté'. However, Brian's parents were horrified, he recalls. 'I hadn't been in my job for long, so they thought 'What the hell is he doing quitting now?' But after a while they realised that if I was going to have an adventure, it was better to do it at that age. Nowadays most kids take a gap year.' The local newspaper printed a picture of him and William with the heading: 'It's Bombay or Bust for Two Easy Riders'. Neither of them had fancy Lycra gear. 'When we left home, I was wearing jeans and a denim jacket,' says Brian. 'As it warmed up, we changed into jean shorts and T-shirts – there was nothing professional about it.' As the less-experienced cyclist, he found the first week hard going. 'We'd done a few 'practice runs', but the longest was cycling about 20 miles to Stevenage, and we didn't have our panniers loaded up with all the gear, like our tents.' To begin with, every time they came across a steep hill, they would get off and push, until they realised that was harder, says Brian. 'It was best just to put your head down and try not to wobble into traffic.' They set a rough target of 50 miles a day, explains William, but the weather didn't help their initial progress. 'The heavens opened. We arrived at Dover like drowned rats.' However, they soon got into their stride, and their friendship developed too. 'I realised how fond I'd become of Brian when I thought I'd lost him,' says William. 'We sometimes got separated and we'd then meet up at an agreed point. But near Amiens an ambulance came rushing past me, siren blaring, and I panicked that it was Brian. I'd tightened his wheel that morning – maybe I hadn't done it properly? Thankfully he turned up two hours later, to my happiness. We shared a bar of chocolate to celebrate.' They were on a tight budget, so existed mainly on fruit and those cheese sandwiches, remembers Brian. But his favourite memory is from Venice: they met a friendly group and went out for a meal. 'I had no idea that pizzas got cooked in a proper pizza oven, so I couldn't understand why they came out so slowly. It was the best thing I'd ever eaten.' The journey took them through Italy, Yugoslavia and into Greece, arriving in early August. Brian had always known he probably wouldn't go further, he says: 'I'd told William 'Let's wait and see if we're still talking to each other by then', just to mollify his persistence.' Fortunately they met a Dutch traveller, Rudy, who wanted to cycle to Israel; he and William decided to travel on together, while Brian returned home. It was back to normality, explains Brian. 'I got a job as a computer programmer for the Open University, and moved to Milton Keynes. I met my wife Alison – she was a university administrator.' The couple, now retired, live in East Sussex. But he never forgot his adventure. 'It became my party piece,' says Brian. 'If I was at the pub or a dinner party, and everyone was telling stories, I could say: 'I remember sleeping in a watermelon field in Greece – at least I had breakfast on hand.' And people would say 'What a load of rubbish!' So I always carried that newspaper cutting about our trip in my wallet as proof.' When William finally reached India, he lived in an ashram for three years. He joined the foundation which ran that ashram, and one in the Catskills in New York State, meeting his wife, Chaya, in the process. 'We travelled round the world living out of suitcases, until she became pregnant with our son,' he says. The couple now live in New Jersey and have two children: Dan, 32, and Sophia, 29. William had kept detailed diaries of his cycling exploits, and during Covid he used them to write a book, Far Sweeter Than Honey. He began trying to find Brian 'so that he could read what I'd written before I published'. But it proved an almost impossible task. They had reconnected briefly in 1981, speaking on the phone, but they never actually met up. William blames Brian's then-girlfriend, 'who wanted him to forget his past. She forbade him from seeing me. In those days, it was easy to then lose touch.' He's not much of a social media user, and is bewildered by the enormous public response. 'It's absolutely crazy,' says Brian. 'I've never been involved with anything like this – I've never gone viral.' William's initial post now has more than 2,000 likes, and there are numerous comments from people touched by the happy ending to their story. William says: 'Seeing the reaction has made me realise it's actually quite heart-warming. Two people said: 'Oh, this has brought me to tears.'' Speaking to William has brought back all sorts of memories, says Brian. 'I've gone back and dug out my old passport and photographs.' After the initial phone call, he was excited about meeting up in person, especially after chatting on the phone and filling in all those gaps. 'It's not like we're strangers. I knew William was the sort of guy who would make his life happen – he had such drive. It's great to hear what he's been up to.' However, William says he owes much of his happiness to Brian. 'I never would have done the journey if it hadn't been for him, and then I never would have met my wife and had my two kids. All these years, I just wanted to thank him.'
Daily Record
03-05-2025
- General
- Daily Record
Woman discovers mum's huge family secret she hid for 64 years
A Guernsey woman has uncovered two long-lost sisters born during WWII—after a stranger's email unravelled a family secret kept hidden for over 60 years. A British woman has discovered two long-lost sisters—decades after World War II tore her family apart—thanks to a stranger's message on a genealogy website. Jag Sherbourne, 69, from Guernsey made the discovery following a message from a stranger on the now-defunct Friends Reunited website in 2009. The email, sent by Charley Miller, claimed she was searching for her grandmother's sister and named Sherbourne's father, Charles Le Bargy — a rare surname on the Channel Islands. 'That's what caught my attention, because it's a very rare Channel Island surname, there are only a handful of people and they are all related,' said Jag. Initially skeptical, she dismissed the possibility. 'I told her, 'It can't be me. My parents were apart during the war. It's very interesting, but I'm afraid it's all just a coincidence.'' But when Charley referenced a guest house named "Romo" on Guernsey — a name Jag's parents used privately after the war — everything changed. 'No-one could have known what that house was called,' she said. She had always known her parents had been separated during the Nazi occupation of Guernsey, the only British territory captured by Germany during the war. Her mother Kathleen had evacuated to Somerset in 1940, shortly before the island was bombed and occupied on June 30. Charles remained behind due to his role at the power station, reports the Mirror. 'They lived apart with no communication, other than the occasional Red Cross messages, which were just 25 heavily censored words, a few times a year,' Sherbourne explained. She recalled: 'I deduced from that that she didn't have anything interesting to say about it, ridiculous as that sounds.' Her father, by contrast, had often spoken about his time during the occupation. 'He'd tell me how, when he came across Nazis who didn't speak English, he would mock them in a friendly manner, so they wouldn't know.' But Sherbourne's understanding of her family's past was turned upside down after opening a box of her father's wartime belongings — a box she had ignored since his death in 1995. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. 'There was a lot of stuff relating to the war, including all the Red Cross messages. Then I found one sentence in one of the letters from my mum, telling him that if he wanted to tell the family about the baby she couldn't, but it might be better to wait until she got home as there was a lot to explain.' Further investigation revealed that Kathleen had given birth to two daughters while in England — one in 1942 and another in 1945 — both adopted out during the war. Jag hired a mediation service to trace one of the women, Pauline, and later confirmed the other sister, Michele, through birth certificates and ancestry websites. She remembered a childhood incident that now made sense. 'I remember when I was about six this teenage girl came to stay with us, she helped around the house but we also shared a room, it was like having an older sister. But she didn't stay long… I vaguely remembered that there were arguments and she had run away.' She also recalled a quiet moment with her father: 'I remember sitting with my dad on my bed, telling him how my dream was to have a sister, and my dad saying to me, 'You do have a sister, but she ran away'. And I remember getting really upset at that, and Dad never spoke about it again.' In 2011, Jag and her husband Peter travelled to England to meet both sisters — Michele, then living in London, and Pauline, in Swindon. 'When I first saw Michele it was like I was looking at my mother. She remembered me from that time she'd come to live with us in Guernsey,' she said. 'She was very loving towards me, she really treated me like a sister.' Michele, who died in 2017, had three daughters — including one named Jacqueline, after Sherbourne. Pauline, a retired bank worker, and Jag have remained close. 'We phone each other regularly and we take our camper van over to see them at least once a year. They're keen bird watchers, so we park in the Cotswold Water Park and spend time together. We both have the same sense of humour, our mother's.' Sherbourne continues to uncover pieces of her family's story. 'I found a photo amongst Mum's stuff of a British soldier in the Somerset Light Infantry. I think he's probably the father of one of my sisters, but I don't know.' Reflecting on the era and her mother's choices, she added: 'We forget how things were back then. No-one knew if the Germans would invade Britain and if they would see their loved ones again… I can't blame my mother for that.' Despite unanswered questions, Sherbourne says finding her sisters changed her life. 'Throughout my life I always wished I'd had a sister, I somehow felt that was missing. And now I've discovered that all this time I had not one, but two. I'm so pleased I finally found them.' Her story is detailed in her memoir, Clouds in My Guernsey Sky.
Daily Mirror
03-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
'My mum hid huge family secret - then I found out 64 years later'
Jag Sherbourne grew up thinking she was an only child, but in fact all their lives her parents had hidden from her what had happened when the young couple had been separated during the war As the dust settled after the end of the Second World Wa r it wasn't just the stories of battlefield bravery and heroism that slowly began to emerge, but also those within normal families - which were often no less dramatic. Jag Sherbourne's wartime drama came 64 years after VE Day - thanks to a stranger's email in her inbox. It was the start of an incredible journey which would change her life, as the true story of what happened to her mum and dad - separated when the Nazis invaded their Guernsey home - finally began to unravel. The Channel Islands, including Guernsey, close to the French mainland, were the only British territories to to be occupied by German forces in the Second World War. Following Churchill's decision to withdraw troops, 25,000 residents were evacuated to Britain, before Hitler's troops marched onto the five islands on June 30, 1940. Growing up an only child in Guernsey's capital, St Peter Port, Jag knew her parents, Kathleen and Charles, had spent the whole war apart, finally reuniting two months after VE Day and continuing with their lives together. What she didn't know was that, during those five long years with very little communication, her mother had given birth to two daughters - her long-lost sisters. Retired maths teacher Jag, now 69, remembers: 'I'd got a friend request on Facebook from someone called Charley Miller. It was one of those requests with no profile picture so I'd deleted it. 'A week later I got an email from Friends Reunited, from the same woman. This time I opened it. It was quite brief, saying she was looking for her grandmother's sister. She told me her grandmother was called Michele, and had a father called Charles, and that his surname was Le Bargy. 'That's what caught my attention, because it's a very rare Channel Island surname, there are only a handful of people and they are all related. 'We started an email conversation, but I quickly realised she must be mistaken. She said her nan was born in January 1945 and she'd found another baby girl who'd been born in 1942. I told her, 'It can't be me. My parents were apart during the war. It's very interesting, but I'm afraid it's all just a coincidence.'' But the next morning Jag woke up to another email telling her that her nan had once worked in a guest house on Guernsey called Romo. Jag was astounded. 'After the war, my parents turned their house into a guest house in the summer and called it Romo. They moved away after a few years and the name was lost. No-one could have known what that house was called.' Until then, all Jag knew was that when evacuations began her mum, then aged 24 and married for two years, had gone with her younger sister to live with family in Bridgewater, Somerset, where she had worked at a gunpowder factory. Months earlier she had given birth to a boy, Jag's brother, but he had sadly died at just two months old, in March 1940. Jag, who was born 14 years after the end of the war, explains: 'The Germans were advancing across France and it looked like the Channel Islands would be invaded. I think both Mum and Dad intended to evacuate, but my dad worked at the power station and wasn't able to go with mum straight away. 'She took his suit with her. He had applied to join the army, so he had every intention to follow her. But the island was bombed at the end of June, and then it was occupied, and that was it. They lived apart with no communication, other than the occasional Red Cross messages, which were just 25 heavily censored words, a few times a year.' Jag remembers how her mum, who died in 1988, aged just 32, rarely spoke about that time. She says: 'I deduced from that that she didn't have anything interesting to say about it, ridiculous as that sounds. 'My dad, however, seemed to really enjoy it and would often talk about the occupation and his escapades. Because he worked shifts, he would be outside after curfew, and remembered coming across German roadblocks where they'd be shining torches on him. 'He'd tell me how, when he came across Nazis who didn't speak English, he would mock them in a friendly manner, so they wouldn't know. He also entered amateur dramatics during the war and was in a lot of plays. I think it was an exciting time for him. Jag's dad died in 1995, but she hadn't opened the box of his personal things her husband had packed and put in their attic, even though she knew it would contain more memories. But the unexpected email from Charley, who was convinced she was her sister's granddaughter, changed that. She recalls: 'When she mentioned the guest house, that's when it started to click. I remember when I was about six this teenage girl came to stay with us, she helped around the house but we also shared a room, it was like having an older sister. But she didn't stay long, I vaguely remembered that there were arguments and she had run away. 'And then I remembered once sitting with my dad on my bed, telling him how my dream was to have a sister, and my dad saying to me, 'You do have a sister, but she ran away'. And I remember getting really upset at that, and Dad never spoke about it again.' It was then that Jag decided to open her father's box of memories. 'There was a lot of stuff relating to the war, including all the Red Cross messages' she remembers. 'Then I found one sentence in one of the letters from my mum, telling him that if he wanted to tell the family about the baby she couldn't, but it might be better to wait until she got home as there was a lot to explain.' Realising that what Charley had told her was true, Jag made her own investigations, using ancestry websites and sending off for the birth certificates. It was becoming clear that Michele, born in 1945, was her sister, but there was another baby who had been born in Newton Abbott, Devon, in 1942. At first, she wondered if this might have been the baby her mum had lost, perhaps with an error in the birth year. The birth certificate showed that her mother hadn't named the baby. In the margin, a note said 'Adopted'. Jag paid a mediation service to trace the woman, Pauline, who replied, wanting to make contact. After exchanging messages and phone calls, Jag and her husband Peter went to England to meet Michele in London, and Pauline, now living in Swindon, Wiltshire, for the first time. Jag, who has a son, daughter and two stepsons, says: 'When I first saw Michele it was like I was looking at my mother. She remembered me from that time she'd come to live with us in Guernsey. At first she held herself back and there were things she didn't want to talk about, but she was very loving towards me, she really treated me like a sister. After that, every time we went to London we'd see her, and she came over with Charley and her daughters to stay with us. Michele, a former home help carer who died in 2017, had three daughters. She'd even named her youngest Jacqueline - Jag's full name - after the sister she hadn't seen for decades. Jag and Pauline, a retired bank worker who has a daughter with her husband Ken, have become close friends since first meeting in 2011. She says: 'We phone each other regularly and we take our camper van over to see them at least once a year. They're keen bird watcher,s so we park in the Cotswold Water Park and spend time together. We both have the same sense of humour, our mother's.' There remain many unanswered questions. Jag, who tells her remarkable journey in her book Clouds in my Guernsey Sky, says: 'I found a photo amongst Mum's stuff of a British soldier in the Somerset Light Infantry. I think he's probably the father of one of my sisters, but I don't know. 'We forget how things were back then. No-one knew if the Germans would invade Britain and if they would see their loved ones again. At that time, any child born out of wedlock was put up for adoption. I can't blame my mother for that. 'Michele was born in January 1945. I think mum put her in an orphanage temporarily until the war ended. I found letters from my dad applying for jobs in the UK and Australia. I think he wanted to bring her up as his daughter, but Guernsey was a very Methodist island. That would have brought shame on them, so they planned on moving somewhere else. 'There is huge sadness for me that my parents aren't around to talk about it. I think they would have some fascinating stories to tell.' Finding her long-lost sisters, however, has made the whole journey worth it. 'It's been life changing for me,' says Jag. 'Throughout my life I always wished I'd had a sister, I somehow felt that was missing. And now I've discovered that all this time I had not one, but two. I'm so pleased I finally found them.' VE Day: 80th Anniversary Magazine Specials To commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, we bring you two special special collector's magazines that look back at events that led to the end of World War II in Europe and marked a new era. In the VE Day 80: Anniversary Collector's Edition we share photographs from the street parties that were held all over Britain, while esteemed author and journalist Paul Routledge paints a picture of how the day was bittersweet, mixed with jubilation and hope for the future, as well as sadness and regret for the past. Routledge also recounts the key events of the Second World War, including Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and Pearl Harbour. The magazine costs £9.99. Also available is World War Two - A History in 50 Photographs, a definitive pictorial account of the war. Carefully chosen from hundreds of thousands of images, this commemorative magazine shares 50 exceptional photographs - including many rarely seen shots - that capture the devastating moments, horror, hope and eventual triumph of World War Two. The magazine costs £6.99.
