FOR more than 50 years Clive Brooks and Lee Turner have lived within 16 miles of a sister they never knew existed.

Then out of the blue Mr Brooks, a 54-year-old painter and decorator of Vicarage Hill, Kingsteignton, received a telephone call from his aunt saying their sister had made contact by tracing the family to their cousin in Dawlish.

Like Mrs Turner, who lives in Decoy, Newton Abbot, he was 'absolutely gobsmacked'.

Their mother Joy (nee Lowe), of Kingsteignton, died five years ago and took the secret with her, but at the same time her first daughter Jenny McCarthy, now aged 56, who works in an orthopaedic hospital in Exeter and lives in Heavitree, began trying to trace her family.

It transpired their mother, a dancing teacher, lived in Barton Terrace, Dawlish, became pregnant as a teenager during world war two and was sent to Bideford by her family.

Joy gave birth to Jenny in January 1945 in a nursing home – the baby was adopted – and she returned to her parents in Dawlish.

Not long after, she met Tom Brooks and they married and later moved to Kingsteignton in 1952.

For many years Mr Brooks, who died in 1987, worked on the railway and was chairman of Watts Blake Bearne Social Club.

'I got in touch with the hospital to see if there was a Jennifer (nee Lowe) working there and the receptionist happened to be her best friend.

'Within an hour my mobile phone rang and Jenny said you are now speaking to your sister. It was very emotional.

'We arranged to meet at the Ley Arms, Kenn. It was incredible to see each other and the three of us spent the evening asking loads of questions and chatting. it was a marvellous occasion,' said Mr Brooks.

He added that when he telephoned Mrs Turner to tell her the news she was more gobsmacked than he was.

'We were quite shocked to think our mother had never mentioned it to us. Why she kept it secret remains a mystery,' he said.

Clive and his wife Sandy, Lee and husband Roger, and Jenny and husband Dom all have two children, while during her younger days Jenny was a keen ballet dancer just like the mother she never knew.

Now they have arranged a family reunion at the home of their cousin, James Hill, in Port Road, Dawlish.