A ten-year-old girl who wept when she was reunited with her Royal Navy father at the Festival of Remembrance said she “completely froze” when she saw him.
Megan Adams, from Stirling, ran across the arena of the Royal Albert Hall to embrace Lieutenant Commander Billy Adams, who returned three months early from anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean.
She was among five daughters of servicemen chosen to perform this year’s Poppy Appeal single The Call (No Need to Say Goodbye).
Megan said: “It was a surprise too for me that he came back, and I was just so excited to see him.
“At first I thought, is that really him? Did he come all of this way for me? I completely froze.”
When host Huw Edwards told her he had a surprise for her, she looked at the big screen because she was expecting a video message.
Only when fellow Poppy Girls Alice Milburn, 13, and Bethany Davey, 15, turned her in the right direction did she spot her father in the flesh.
Alice, whose father has served in the Royal Navy since he was 19 and whose mother was in the RAF for eight years, and Bethany, whose father was in the army before joining the Reserves, were told in advance in case Megan was too shocked to move.
Bethany said: “I went in her ear: Megan, run! Go, go!”
Florence Ransom, 10, whose father is a Navy Lieutenant based at HMS Collingwood in Portsmouth, even thought at first that it was a projection.
Lt Cdr Adams had been in the Seychelles since June as part of Operation Atalanta, set up in 2008 to root out pirates off the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden.
The father of two said he was working in the command centre at Port Victoria when he received an email telling him to pack his bags for the trip.
He said: “There were some inquiries made to see what the possibility would be of coming back for a few days to witness the performances, and I found out just over a week ago.
“I had no idea that people were moving behind the scenes to make it happen. I was overwhelmed and delighted at the same time.
“I was quite emotional thinking that I’d been given the opportunity to go home. It’s not a normal thing with the services to do that, so I was delighted.”
Authorisation for the trip had to go through Lt Cdr Adams’s operational commander Rear Admiral Robert Tarrant.
Postings to Port Victoria usually last for six to nine months, and Lt Cdr Adams is due to return for the remainder of his tour.
He said: “Obviously you miss your family. You miss lots of special, key events and dates, and this was going to be one of them.
“But I think it’s particularly difficult for the families who get left behind. We’re sent on operations to do a job, we do that, but actually the real hardship is for them.”