Brothers meet after 80-year wait | Bay of Plenty News | Local News in Bay of Plenty

The year was 1946 and, having survived the D-Day landings two years previously, Royal Marine Stan Grayland was preparing to leave the Sussex barracks where he was residing.

Young trainees were coming to take the place of the older recruits and, as was customary, the new boys were charged with making cups of tea for their superiors.

Among them was Bill Abbott, Mr Grayland's younger brother - but if the two men met, they can not remember, nor could they have possibly known about their blood connection.

That is because neither knew the other existed until last month.

Born in London in 1925, Mr Grayland, who now lives at Mount Maunganui, was fostered out when he was just six months old.

Until he was 12, he had no idea that the Graylands, who lived 29km from where he was born and who had taken him into their home, were not his biological parents.

"In cases like mine there's always some well-meaning aunt who tells you you're not part of the family," he said, recalling the day he found out.

And from that day onwards, he spent the rest of his life wondering - until January 5 this year when he received an email that helped piece together the missing parts of his life.

Mr Grayland, who started trying "in earnest" to trace his roots four years ago, had all but given up after coming up against a series of dead ends.

But Mr Grayland's granddaughter, Barbara Mills, who lives in Australia, was not so quick to throw in the towel.

"She is much more interested in genealogy. When she came out here on holiday last year she said: 'Poppa I'll help you'."

Ms Mills posted a notice on a British genealogy website, which was answered by Mr Abbott's niece Karen, who was tracing the family tree.

"Suddenly there was some hope. I thought we're on to something," Mr Grayland said.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Mr Abbott, 76, like his older brother, emigrated to the southern hemisphere and now lives in Australia so it was without hesitation that he made the journey across the ditch to meet his only remaining sibling.

"We had a little hug. We are a bit grown up for tears but I felt them welling up," Mr Grayland said of their first meeting at Auckland airport recently.

"I hadn't been looking at all," Mr Abbott added. "I thought all my family had been wiped out, apart from my son and my daughter. My wife had died, my parents had died, my brother and sister had died. I thought - what's all this about?

"It's really good. Now I have someone to blame my troubles on," he said.

"And I have to look after him," Mr Grayland added in big-brotherly fashion, the easy rapport between them evident.

The two men share the same mother, Lily Ada Lewington, and photographs would suggest the same father, Jack Abbott, who bears a striking resemblance to Mr Grayland.

And it would seem parents are not the only thing the pair have in common.

As well as both serving in the Royal Marines, they both have a sweet tooth and "itchy feet", Mr Grayland being a golf enthusiast while Mr Abbott spends every spare moment he can on his boat.

Mr Grayland's birth father served in the East Surrey regiment, as did his adopted father.

"I have gone from having no family to having two big family trees. It's been a funny business altogether," he said, clutching a thick folder of documents and photographs.

Mr Grayland harbours no bitterness about being adopted out but feels sad about the lost years.

"I had a good life, I had good people looking after me. The only regret I have is that we didn't meet 30 years earlier."

Mr Grayland and his partner Stella Steel will meet Mr Abbott and his partner Patricia Sommerville in Christchurch next month for a family tour of the South Island.

"The circle is complete now. It's a nice feeling," Mr Grayland said.