A BROTHER and sister separated when they were sent to different orphanages 57 years ago have had a tearful reunion.

It ended 63-year-old John Earl's search for the sister he last saw when she was a babe in arms. Carole Farrington was only four months old when she and John, then six, were taken from their dying mother and sent to different orphanages on Tyneside.

After a long search, John, now of London, found success when he asked the National Statistics Office for help.

Carole, 57, a grandmother with three grown-up children, said: "I always wanted to trace John and tried to do it myself but always failed."

Carole was born in Gateshead after her mother, Ethel Earl, married Velly Kwistlund, a Dane. Ethel, who already had John from a previous relationship, fell ill with TB while her husband, a sailor, was away at sea in 1943.

Carole, now of Washington, Wearside, said: "We are both just glad to be together again, which is where we belong.