By Gary Cooper

A FORFAR woman has come face-to-face with a sister she did not know existed in an emotionally charged meeting.

With tears streaming down her face, Maureen Mearns hugged Vicky Darroch as she tried to come to terms with the unknown sibling who entered her life just over a week ago.

Friday’s tearful embrace was the successful end of 20 years of efforts by Vicky to trace her family.

She made the journey from her Birmingham home to Angus to see Maureen.

Vicky contacted the Missing Persons Bureau, which carried out its own inquiries and called Maureen to tell her a Birmingham woman was keen to contact her.

“Vicky had been trying all those years and in two days, after she went on to the internet, the bureau provided the missing link,” Maureen said yesterday.

“I was in shock when I got the call.

“I really thought someone was winding me up.”

They spoke on the phone and photographs were exchanged, but it did not prepare them fully for their first meeting.

“There are no words to describe it,” Maureen continued.

“We just looked at each other and couldn’t believe what was happening.

“We’ve spent the weekend finding out about each other and these new families that have come into each other’s lives.”

Vicky has a daughter, Karen, while Maureen has daughters Karina and Debbie and a son, Marc.

The sisters found out their mother, Beatrice, who died in 1991, had Vicky when she was working in Harrogate in 1948.

A single mum, she put her up for adoption when she was six weeks old.

She later met Maureen’s father, John, and the couple married in December 1949, moving to Wick in the 1950s.

They had daughters Maureen and Sheila and a son, Iain, who Vicky had been desperately trying to trace.

Sheila and Iain live in Wick, with Iain and his wife, Liz, making a surprise visit from Caithness to meet Vicky in Forfar at the weekend.

Vicky lived in Paisley until 17 years ago, when she moved to the Midlands but, despite the distance, the similarities with Maureen are uncanny.

“We like the same things— clothes and gardening—and we’ve both got dogs,” Maureen said.

“You can see how Vicky is very much like mum.”

Vicky attempted to find her birth family 20 years ago by placing an advert in a Harrogate newspaper, not knowing her mother had moved to Scotland.

Beatrice also tried to track down Vicky, but mother and daughter were never reunited.

Now the long-running quest to meet up has been successful, they have promised never to let each other go.

Maureen said, “I’m going down to Birmingham, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, for a weekend with Vicky.

“She also wants to come up here and further north, just to find out more about her roots.”

Maureen and her husband, Jim, are planning a week-long visit to the Midlands as they make up for lost time.