A mother and daughter who lost touch after one of them moved to America have been brought back together through the Evening Star's Finding Friends website.

Pat Burrow's daughter Lesley moved abroad with her serviceman husband 13 years ago - and the last news Pat has was that she was living in North Carolina with her first child and a new baby.

But it dawned on her that they had lost touch and Lesley was missing from their lives - and that the months had stretched into years.

During those lost years Pat had moved house, and later split up with her husband.

Unknown to them, Lesley too was having difficulties in her marriage. She moved to the other side of America and in the aftermath of the split neither party left forwarding addresses.

Pat embarked on a desperate search find out what had happened when she realised she might never see her daughter again. She twice travelled to America in her search.

But the break came when Lesley's estranged daughter Kara, (20), grew curious about her mum's family in Ipswich and placed an advert in The Evening Star.

Lesley found out about Kara's search and was consequently reunited with the daughter she had barely seen since her marriage broke up.

And she in turn placed an advert on the site in the hope of finding her own mother.

A friend came across the message and Pat was given the news she had been waiting 13 years to hear.

Pat said: "She was crying, I was crying. We just talked for four hours. There was so much to say, so much to catch up on."

Over the years the Evening Star's Finding Friends service has brought together many old friends and families whom time and circumstances had set apart. Readers use it to find old friends or family members, organise school reunions and get an e-mail pen pals.

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