Long Lost - the new book that features two Luton reunion stories
MONICA Porter’s weekly Daily Mail column Missing . . . and Found! has often featured Luton reunion stories. Now two of them appear in her new book Long Lost, The Story of the Newspaper Column That Started the Reunion Industry.
It not only highlights several of her more interesting successes, but also provides an easy guide to finding someone yourself.
Former Ovaltiney Alf Cooper, 87, who lives in Bushmead, contacted the column in 2006 to try to find fellow child stars who appeared with him and his twin brother Freddie as they toured the country promoting the hot malt drink – the first to be advertised on commercial radio.
Sadly Freddie died two years ago and Alf has also been poorly – he’s been in and out of hospital this year. His wife Myra said: “There aren’t many Ovaltineys left but it will be really nice for them to have a record like this in a book.”
She added Alf was delighted to be put in touch with some of the his old Vaudeville colleagues after his story appeared in Monica’s column.
They included Patricia Lee of Devon who wrote: “I appeared in a show with Fred and Alf in which I was one of the dancers called the Tele-Belles.”
Another former Ovaltiney was Margaret Kennedy who married Big Band musician Richard Kennedy.
The town also gets a mention with ‘Trolley dolly’ Diana Gray, one of Luton-based Monarch Airlines’ first 16 stewardesses. She was reunited with some of her former colleagues after her appeal appeared in the paper in 2008.
Mary-Anne Hardie, daughter of airline founder Bill Hodgson, recalled seeing the first Britannia take off in 1968. She said: “I used to go up to Luton as a great treat during my school holidays.”
In all there are 75 heart-warming tales of people reunited with long lost friends, family members, school chums and wartime comrades.
The book also relates the story behind the groundbreaking newspaper column which was inspired by Holyhead couple Gill and John Whitley who traced John’s mother after 34 years. It led them to set up the voluntary service on which the column is based.
Gill gives readers practical advice on how to search for someone and describes the evolution of her tracing methods, thanks to electronic databases and online resources.
Missing . . . and Found! was ahead of its time, the forerunner to websites like Friends Reunited and television series such as Who Do You Think You Are?
- Long Lost, The Story of the Newspaper Column That Started the Reunion Industry by Monica Porter (Quartet Books) costs £12.
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