Lockdown 2020 was a challenging experience for the world and life changed in so many ways that it looked as though there was little hope of anything beyond the prospects of a bleak future.
However, for me, something happened during this time that changed things completely, but in a fantastic way. It was during lockdown that Raine and I decided to have yet another try at researching our family trees.
We decided to jump in with both feet and signed up to Ancestry.com. Over the next two months or so we began building our trees and searching through the records.
While Raine had some good information where her family was concerned, I had scant few details where mine was concerned.
I managed to make a basic tree and filled it with the information I could remember and made very slow progress.
An unexpected message
One day in early September I received a private message from another member and although it was a woman’s name on the account, the message itself was from her boyfriend.
He asked certain details about my family and we exchanged a few messages and as we did, it became apparent that we had a very real family connection.
Within a matter of days, we realised that we were brothers. Yes, my long lost big brother had found me after 51 years apart.
The last time I’d seen Andy was in 1969, the year of Abbey Road, Woodstock and the moon landing. My brother had joined the army that year and gone from my life.
At the time I was only six years old and during the years that followed my family had something of a nomadic existence as we moved at least eleven times in as many years.
Moved from place to place
As a young child, I was oblivious of the fact that we had lost touch with my brother. As the years went by I gave up asking about him, though I thought about him nearly every day, wondering where he was.
Time moved forward and I grew up. By 2020 I had no living family that I knew of and had decided I was okay with this, that is until Andy came back into my life.
After the message which established that we were brothers, we talked on the phone every week, as we made up for lost time.
There are twelve years between us and yet the way we are, the way we think, you would be forgiven for thinking that we’re twins.
We are as close now as we would have been had the lost years never happened. The only hard thing was that because of lockdown we were unable to arrange a meeting until this year, 2021.
A family meal
We met up in York for a family meal. Andy brought his girlfriend Jacky, the lady who as it turned out was instrumental in pushing him to get in contact with me.
My wife Raine and daughters Estelle and Amelia were also there to meet their long lost uncle. Sadly because of work commitments our son Jordan couldn’t be there, though he has spoken to Andy on the phone.
Brothers go home
It was a wonderful experience and since that time we went back to our home city together to explore areas from our long-ago past, spending around eleven hours in each other’s company.
Our next meet up, if all goes well weather-wise, will be at a nearby airfield where Andy is making a charity parachute jump.
Yes, it turned out that my brother was something of an adventurer, having also at one time been a stock car racer.
Lockdown story
The world may have been in a bad place during 2020, but I’m proof that not all of the stories remembered will be sad ones.
As for me, well, I am so grateful to have a family once again and my brother back in my life, where he belongs.