KISS SEALS REUNION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23859, 13 July 1939, Page 15

KISS SEALS REUNION

BROTHER AND SISTER MEETING AFTER THIRTY-NINE YEARS • For the first time in 39 years, middleaged brother and sister met on the Harbour Station platform at Portsmouth, England, the other day. They were parted 42 years ago when they were left orphans through the death of their parents in Edinburgh.

The couple who figured in this happy reunion, Mr John Berry, of Gosport, and Mrs Georgina Sheldon, of Manor, Sheffield, sealed the event with a kiss. " Er, lad! I am glad to see you,” Mrs Sheldon said to her brother. With a tear in her eye she added, "And all the time I thought I was all alone.” “When our parents died in 1897,” Mrs Sheldon said, “ John and another sister were put in the care of a foster mother at Elsrickle Biggar. Lanark, and I was taken to my grandmother. “We saw each other at Easter, 1900. and then lost touch. Tn September last, through an advertisement, I found my aunt, Mrs Riddell, in Edinburgh, and she told me John was still living but she did not know where. “ She also told me that he had served in his father’s old regiment, the 7th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, and with this information I was able to get in touch with him through the Ministry of Pensions at Uxbridge."

Mr Berry was wounded in the second battle of Ypres. After meeting his sister he remarked:

“ It’s funny to discover suddenly you are an uncle and a grand-uncle several times. My sister has nine children and eleven grandchildren.” The other sisler. stated the News of the World, migrated to New Zealand, and was killed in an earthquake about 10 or 15 years ago.