Simon Elvidge spent 30 years wondering who his birth mother was. In the third and final part of a series on motherhood ahead of Mothering Sunday, he tells Women's Editor Lindsay Jennings how he finally found her through The Northern Echo.

SIMON Elvidge was about seven years old when his mum sat him down and told him he had been adopted. "It was funny when I was told because I was too young really for it to be a shock," he recalls. "It was a bit of a nothing experience because at that age it was something I didn't really think about. I was more interested in going out to play. It was when I got older that it became a bit of an issue."

Simon, 37, grew up in Bridlington with his adoptive parents and two younger sisters. The family lived in a three-bed semi and enjoyed annual holidays to the Norfolk Broads and the Dales. He had a wonderful childhood, he says, but as he got older, the niggling started. He would wonder who his birth mother was, what she looked like, where she was living and whether she was thinking about him on his birthday.

"I've got a vivid imagination and I thought she might be a princess living in a castle with lots of money," he jokes. "But emotionally I always thought there was something missing. I used to hold back a bit and that caused problems in relationships."

Simon, a roofing contractor, went on to have a daughter, Anastasia, now eight, with his first partner, and later two more, Katy, two, and Angel, 11 months, with his wife Nicola. He had never tried to look for his mum before, but he says the idea first entered his head when his daughter was born.

"As soon as I had kids I wanted to share that with her," he says. "I thought grandparents can get a lot of fun out of seeing their grandchildren. But it was a difficult step to try and find her, because I was happy with my life and the way things were."

The first step saw Simon going to see social services and having a consultation with a counsellor before they gave him some brief details about his mother and father. They included his mother's name, Susan Morton, and that she was 20 when she had her son and did secretarial work. His father was said to be a coal merchant but in fact turned out to be a mechanic. Simon went on to check the adoption contact register, which can be accessed via the General Register Officer, in Southport, to see if his birth mother had left her name on the list. He was disappointed to find out that she had not.

"Straight away I thought, 'well maybe she doesn't want to find me' and I left it at that for a while," he says. "But then I got married and had another daughter and it just came up again."

This time, wife Nicola helped in the search while Simon was at work. He knew that his mother had lived in Richmond, North Yorkshire. Armed with the telephone book, Nicola set about calling all the Mortons in Richmond and the surrounding areas. Eventually, she came across a distant relative.

Says Simon: "We got a little bit of information, that she had moved away and that she had married a policeman. We also managed to get her sister's telephone number, but when we rang it we discovered she had moved away and hadn't left a forwarding address. It was so frustrating because to get the information was brilliant, the wheels were turning at last, but it came to nothing."

It was then that Simon and Nicola contacted The Northern Echo, to put an appeal for information in the Echo's Tracer section, which aims to reunite people. The appeal went out on November 11, 2002, and included Simon's telephone number. The piece was spotted by both his birth mother's friend and her aunt. Two days later, Susan's husband called and spoke to Nicola.

"It's amazing really how it worked," says Simon. "It is a brilliant way to find people. I was so shocked when I found out, it had gone on for so many years trying to find her. I felt like I was living in a dream world because it had all happened so fast. I found out she was living in Filey, only a few miles down the road, and that they even came into Bridlington to shop."

Simon learned that his mum was from an affluent middle class family who had owned a garage business in Richmond. Her boyfriend had been "a bit of a womaniser" who had gone away one weekend with another woman in a camper van in Norway. The pair of them died from carbon dioxide poisoning due to a faulty fridge. Given the social conditions in which she lived, his mother, who has declined to talk about her experiences, gave up her baby for adoption. Simon also discovered that his mother's birthday was exactly the same as his - March 31.

A few days after the appeal, Simon arranged to take his wife and the girls for a reunion at his birth mother's home in Filey. The meeting went well, but was, perhaps, not as emotionally charged as he thought. "I always thought it would be a really tearful reunion," he says. "I had butterflies and I felt sick, I could have started roaring straight away, but she never did, and in a way it took a bit of the edge off it. I wanted to give her a big hug and burst out crying but then people deal with their emotions in different ways and there are other people to consider."

Two-and-a-half years later, Simon is enjoying getting to know his birth mum. She goes over to her son's every week for a meal and the pair share the same wicked sense of humour.

"We have a right laugh together. She's a lot like me - daft," he laughs.

"We've gone through the 'what if she had kept me scenario' but it wouldn't necessarily have been a good thing. It must have been torture for her to live with it for all those years.

"It's meant everything to me finding her and it feels like a massive weight has been lifted. There was always something missing before and so it's given that back to me."

* To get in touch with old neighbours, friends, family or army pals in the Echo's Tracer column write to Deborah Johnson, The Northern Echo Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or contact her on (01325) 505099.