Against all the odds, a pensioner has discovered the sister he never knew he had.

After 67 years thinking he was an only child, shocked Michael Curtis, of London Road, Marks Tey, spoke on the phone to his sister Barbara in Vancouver, Canada, on Sunday.

The pair were placed in an orphanage in Shenfield when they were small but did not know each other existed.

When Mr Curtis was aged four, three-year-old Barbara was adopted by a family who took her to Devon, changed her surname to Waugh and brought her up as their own.

He said: "I didn't know I had anyone. The orphanage split us up although I never knew she was there."

The siblings then grew up living totally separate lives.

Mr Curtis, a retired welder, said: "Her adopted parents died without telling her who she really was. But they brought her up nicely, sent her to college and she became a school teacher."

She later moved to Canada and it was on a return trip to visit friends in Devon that her adopted uncle dropped the bombshell that her real surname was Curtis.

"He broke down and cried when he told her and she went beserk because she thought she should have been told before," Mr Curtis said.

Barbara searched for her mother for 14 years and eventually discovered she had a brother by records.

She managed to trace Mr Curtis through family-finding agency, Norcap, in Oxfordshire.

"She was as shocked as I was. It was impossible to speak on Sunday it was so tearful," Mr Curtis said.

He is now planning to go and visit her with his wife Sheila in October.

"We had already booked a holiday to Turkey before I knew and now we can't cancel it. I don't want to go now," Mr Curtis said.

Mr Curtis, who has just discovered he has a sister, is pictured with his wife Sheila

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