A Fife man has issued an emotional plea for help in tracing the twin brother and sister he has not seen in over 40 years.
The tiny infants were adopted out of the family after the sudden death of Joyce Thomson back in 1968.
Now Kelty man Roy Thomson, who was only nine when he last saw the 11-month-old twins he knew as Ian and Lorna, is appealing to Courier readers to help him in his quest to find out how their lives have turned out.
“I’ve had two heart attacks and suffer from bronchitis,” he said.
That, coupled with the fact he’s recently heard of the deaths of people younger than him, has left Roy aware that time could be running out.
“All that makes me think: ‘Is it going to be too late?” he said.
The family were devastated in June 1968 when Roy’s mum died, leaving him as head of the household to younger brother Paul and the twins, who had been born the previous year, on July 17, in Dunfermline Maternity Hospital.
In the immediate aftermath the twins and Paul were sent to a St Andrews clinic which no longer exists. Roy stayed with a family friend before he and Paul were sent to their aunt in Somerset.
But with a young family of her own, the brothers soon found themselves back in Fife where they were sent to the old Mossgreen Children’s Home and then back to a family friend they knew as Auntie Mary. Meanwhile, the twins had been placed for adoption.
“That summer was just a nightmare,” said Roy. “I cannot remember meeting my auntie in Somerset before that.”
Paul was too young to remember his mother and the twins, but Roy has never forgotten any of them. He has even had a tattoo of his mother taken from the only photograph he has of her on his back.SearchingHe would now dearly love to hear about his younger brother and sister.
Searching constantly from the time he was 15, he has continually drawn a blank. Initially he combed the St Andrews area as he had been told they had been adopted into a farming family in north-east Fife. But all inquiries there have led to nothing, which made him widen his search.
“I even offered to go and work on farms when I was young, but social services told me not to be silly. All I know is that they were Ian and Lorna, but I am sure even their names would have been changed by their new family,” said Roy.
He named one of his own children Lorna in tribute to the sister he only recalls as a baby.
Roy, who still stays in Kelty near the old family home “in case they ever come looking,” said he had very little to go on.
Once they turned 18 he searched voter rolls in Fife, then Perth, Clackmannanshire to Dundee, hoping against hope he’d spot a pair of teenagers with the same date of birth. But that drew a blank.
“They could be anywhere but I’d search the whole of Scotland, the whole of Britain, if I have to,” he pledged.
Roy isn’t dreaming of a grand family reunion. He just wants to be able to put his mind at ease that his siblings have grown up to lead fulfilling lives.
“I would love to meet them and have a relationship with them, but that isn’t what this is about I just want to know they have had a decent life and grown up happy and settled,” he said.
“I have spent the whole of my life worrying about where they are and how they are. I just want to know if they are happy.”Roy has set up an email address roythomson342@gmail.com for anyone who may have information.Photo David Wardle.