Reunited after 52 year… and it feels so good
Published: October 22, 2007
UK — A father and daughter have been reunited after 52 years apart thanks to staff at a Birmingham City Council residential home.
Eighty-eight-year-old Fiezolie Lynch, known as ‘Fitz’ moved to Britain from Barbados in 1955. After settling in Handsworth Birmingham, Fitz was regularly sending letters and money home to his wife, and daughter Doreen Layne.
Tragically his wife died later in 1955 and he remarried. In 1992 he lost touch with his beloved daughter who is now a 68-year-old mother of four.
Ill-health forced Fitz to move in to Park Hill residential home in Handsworth in 2003. Staff at the nursing home, were able to gather enough information to track down Doreen in Barbados. The Assistant manager at the nursing home, Marlene Blake called Barbados to give Doreen the news that she’d always wanted to hear, her father was alive and well in England.
Fitz’s poor health meant that he was unable to travel to Barbados to see his daughter but Doreen recently arrived in Birmingham on a three-week visit.
She recalled the sheer joy she felt on hearing that her father had been found. She said: “When I got home from work that day and my daughter told me I had a call from England about my father I was over the moon. Whenever family and friends came to visit me from the UK they would ask if I had heard from my dad. My heart would sink every time I told them no,” she explained.
Father and daughter where finally brought together by Fitz’s key worker Beverley Palmer who drove her from the airport and straight into her father’s arms. Doreen has since been able to tell him all about his family, including his seven great-grandchildren.
Birmingham City Council-lor Sue Anderson, Cabinet Member for Adults and Communities, said: “This is a great outcome for Fitz and Doreen after all the planning and organising by City Council staff at Park Hill. I know they plan to keep in touch every day when Doreen returns home and I wish them both well.”
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