AMONGST the crowds of shoppers in Darlington, Isabelle McCready stood nervously waiting, her eyes fixed on the town clock.

With every passing minute her heart rate quickened. As the clock chimed, signalling 1pm, a handsome figure emerged from the crowd, his jacket slung over his shoulder with an air of quiet confidence.

“Oh my god, there he is,” she cried. The figure was Jack Kennedy, a successful Irish dancer who made his fortune after moving from Belfast to America to teach the art of traditional dancing.

He was also the love of Isabelle’s life and she had not seen him for more than 50 years.

In his hand was a diamond ring, bought for Isabelle more than five decades ago and hidden from everyone, including his new wife.

With their mother’s health deteriorating, Isabelle’s daughters Anne-Marie Foster and Suzanne Craig had tracked Jack down and arranged the extraordinary meeting around 15 years ago, to give Isabelle the chance to see him one more time.

“He said he had been waiting for that day all his life. It was like a film that really happened. It was a dream that really did come true,” says Anne-Marie.

“Jack is the one person my mum ever loved, and she still does to this day.”

The encounter is just one of the many remarkable events during Isabelle’s life that features in Anne-Marie’s debut book, The Belle of Belfast.

The book follows Isabelle and Jack’s whirlwind romance, from their first encounters in an Irish youth club aged 15 and 19, respectively, to their heartbreaking split four years later when Jack moved to Canada to find his fortune.

He sent Isabelle countless letters to her Belfast home in the hope of being reunited, but they never reached her. Instead they were stolen, hidden or burnt by her mother, who did not approve of their relationship.

Having given up hope of ever meeting again, Isabelle married and started a family with her new husband Albert - an abusive alcoholic, with a gambling addiction.

With The Troubles erupting around their home in Falls Road, Belfast, in the 1970s, the family escaped to Fenby Avenue, in Darlington, where they lived for most of their life until Albert’s death.

Now with Isabelle aged 83 and living with Alzheimer’s, Anne-Marie decided to write the book as a tribute to her mother's extraordinary and turbulent life.

“I have never written anything in my life, except a shopping list. I am not a writer, I am just an ordinary person who has a very special story to tell,” says the 57-year-old.

“Mum has had a troubled life but she has always been there for us. She is an amazing person and has always shown amazing courage and bravery. This is a tribute to her and is my way of saying thank you to her.

“She was a very beautiful fun loving girl, and she lived a life that she shouldn’t have lived.”

The Belle of Belfast is available to buy on Amazon.co.uk