A WOMAN who appealed to Clacks residents to help her find her biological father made an emotional trip to Alloa last month to meet her long-lost family.

At the beginning of June Beverley Coates contacted the Advertiser to ask for help in tracking down her father whom she had never met.

After an appeal, a woman called Anda Kilpatrick got in touch with Beverley to say that she was her half-sister and that she had a whole family in Scotland who often wondered who she was and if they would ever meet her.

The joy of finding relatives soon turned to sadness, however, when Anda informed Beverley that their father passed away eight years ago.

Despite this, Beverley kept in constant contact with Anda and just two weeks ago she visited the Wee County where she met a whole new family – an experience which completely overwhelmed the 33-year-old.

Describing the moment Anda got in touch, Beverley said: “It was strange, I thought it wasn’t real and just put my phone down and ignored it. When I went back to it Anda was able to match information to confirm it was real.

“She said they have always known about me and that they wanted to meet me. Loads of other members of the family got in touch after that and started to put a picture together of my father.”

Beverley proceeded to make arrangements and travelled up to Clacks from her home in Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, where she had an emotional meeting with her sister.

She continued: “We just both broke down when we saw each other. It was emotional and very overwhelming.

"In the car it wasn’t awkward at all because we had been speaking every day. It was like we already knew each other for years. I felt like I belonged.”

Anda then took Beverley straight to her father’s grave, a moment Beverley said unleashed unexpected feelings.

She said: “I didn’t think I would actually grieve for him, because I still didn’t know him. But I was very sad when I got there.

"Once I left Scotland and was on my own I started processing everything and finally had a chance to grieve for him after that experience.”

After taking Beverley to Kirkintilloch to meet a raft of other family members, she was given some touching mementos which made her feel truly at home.

“Anda had made me a package,” she said. “It had a copy of the Advertiser, a pair of my dad’s glasses, something from his funeral and loads of photographs of the family.”

There are now plans afoot for the Scottish members of the family to go down south to meet Beverley’s family which delights the mother-of-two, as although her search has a tinge of sadness, there has been a happy ending to her quest.

She said: “I am really upset that I never got to meet him, but I feel like after meeting everyone and hearing the stories, that I know him now.”