Irene Adkins and Terry Spriggs, front, with more family members

GREAT-GRANDMOTHER Irene Adkins never knew she had a long-lost brother but she instantly felt a connection with the man standing on her doorstep.

Irene and three of her siblings had been taken into care by Barnado’s when they were little and had no idea their parents William and Kate had three more children.

The 79-year-old was still grieving for her husband Gordon, who had died two weeks earlier, when Terry Spriggs, 73, knocked on the door of her Kidlington home on Thursday and announced he was her brother.

 Yesterday Mrs Adkins revealed she “believed it instantly”. And her family is convinced fate has brought the pair together so soon after her husband’s death.

Barnardo’s archives show the four oldest Spriggs children – Gwen, Len, Irene and Peter Spriggs – were found abandoned in a caravan by the side of a Northamptonshire road in the 1930s.

Irene grew up with foster parents in Crawley, Sussex, and had little contact with the rest of her family.

She said: “The only thing I remember is coming home one day aged about 11 and being told there was a letter for me from my father.

“That was the first time I was told that my foster father was not my real father.

 “I think it changed the way I thought about everything, but at that stage, I could not do a thing about it.”

She moved to Oxfordshire as a teenager, marrying Gordon Adkins, a toolmaker, who recently died, aged 83.

Meanwhile, Terry grew up in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, with his real parents, plus brother Billy and sister Glenys.

At the end of the Second World War, his father told him about his other brothers and sisters, telling him he thought Irene lived in Oxford.

But Mr Spriggs said: “In those times we did not have computers or anything like that, so we did not have a clue where anyone was.”

After National Service in Malaya and Germany, he kept a small-holding in Cornwall, before moving to Kettering to work in construction.

Both branches of the family have tried to trace each other, but without success.

It was only when their niece Sylvia Waters, whose mum Gwen died in the 1950s, tracked down her uncle Terry and searched the Barnardo’s archive that she found a phone number and address in Kidlington where his Mrs Adkins might live.

Mr Spriggs said: “I kept ringing and ringing the number, but got nothing.”

“On Thursday morning, I woke up and said to my wife: ‘I’m going to go to Oxford’.

“I did not know if it was the right place, and I did not know what reception I would get when I got here, but life is too short.”

After a four-and-a-half hour bus journey, he knocked on his sister’s door.

Mrs Adkins continued: “It was wonderful. I believed it instantly.

“I have thought about it often. I wanted to meet other relatives. My children tried searching, but unsuccessfully.”

Mr Spriggs said: “I just went up to her, hugged her, and kissed her. We started to reminisce about our families, and it all came out.”

The pair are the only survivors of seven siblings.

Mrs Adkin’s granddaughter Hayley Davies, 40, said: “They were holding hands. They were cuddling. They did not leave each other’s side all day on Thursday.”

They found out they both had camper vans, holidayed in the same places, and may even have crossed paths without realising.

Irene’s daughter June Mortimer, 59, said: “I think it was meant to be.

“I think last Thursday my Dad said to Terry ‘Get out of bed this morning, and go and find your sister’.”

The brother and sister have vowed to see each other as often as possible.

Mrs Adkins is a mother of six, grandmother of 11 and great-grandmother of 13. Mr Spriggs is a father of five, grandfather of 12 and great-grandfather of one.

By Liam Sloan

Source: oxfordmail.co.uk