A brother and sister from Tayside have met for the first time as pensioners after a lifetime apart.
When Frank Davidson grew up in Angus as a child in the 1940s and ’50s he had no idea he had a younger sister, Marion Allan, living in Dundee and then Blairgowrie.
The pair were united in Arbroath for an emotional get-together this week.
Frank (70) said: “I’m flabbergasted but overjoyed. I never expected at my age to be put in contact with a close blood relative who I didn’t even know existed.”
Born an illegitimate child, Frank was put up for adoption by his mother Jessie Monroe, and subsequently grew up in Elliot, Arbroath, before moving to Barry, outside Carnoustie, when he was nine.
Jessie gave birth to Marion in Dundee six years later and raised her for the first two years of her life before catching tuberculosis.
During Jessie’s treatment at Ashludie Hospital in Monifieth in 1950, Marion was fostered to a family in Blairgowrie.
Jessie recovered from TB and in 1960 moved to New York after meeting an American, who she would later marry.
A talented seamstress, she was employed as a theatre wardrobe mistress on Broadway for 28 years, working with a variety of stars, including Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Sammy Davis Jr.
Frank found out he was adopted aged 21 when he saw a note on his birth certificate on joining the Merchant Navy but he made no attempt to contact his mother.
Marion, now 64 and living in Buckie, Banffshire, learned about the existence of Frank from a relative when she was in her twenties.
Four decades later she asked her friend, Christina Calder, to trace her family tree and to try to track Frank down.
“I told Chris that I knew I had a brother who would have been born in 1942 but nobody ever knew what became of Frank,” said Marion, a mother of three and grandmother of six.
“I said if we could find Frank that would be the best thing. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. Well, Chris traced the Munro family tree right back to the mid-1700s but the search for Frank was very difficult.”
Chris hunted for clues for three months and even resorted to phoning every Frank Davidson in the Tayside phonebook, little knowing that Frank lived in Bristol after leaving the navy in 1970.
It was only when Marion mentioned the problem to her 91-year-old uncle Eck that he recalled a family in Carnoustie who knew of Frank. They were able to provide Marion with an address.
Marion’s subsequent letter came completely out of the blue to Frank.
He said: “I was shocked. After I got the letter we spoke on the phone nearly every day, about our past experiences and caught up on news about grandchildren. Marion wrote to me about our mother’s history and time in America. It was remarkable.”
Frank and Marion, along with Frank’s wife Sylvia and Chris, met at the Harbour Night guest house in Arbroath this week to tour several of the places in which the siblings grew up.
Tonight Frank will meet several relatives for the first time at a celebratory meal in the town.
Marion said: “Frank will meet my uncle Eck, who is now aged 91, and remembers holding Frank in his arms when he was born. All his life he has wondered what happened to him. We have had so much to catch up on.”
Frank, who has two children and five grandchildren, said he hoped they could come to Scotland to meet Marion and his new-found relatives this summer.