LONELY divorcee Stan Young found more than the perfect bride when he answered her ad in The Northern Echo's contact column Two's Company - he discovered four half-brothers he did not know existed.

As well as agreeing to marry Stan next August, Gail Burns - the "single non-smoking female with long blonde hair" he phoned back in March 1999 - changed his life by badgering him into tracking down the dad he thought was dead.

The trail led to Newcastle where they knocked on the door in Cowgate where Stan's father, Alec, now lives with his second wife, Lydia.

Stan's new-found half brothers Alec, 31, Alan, 29, David, 27, and 24-year-old Tom were just as surprised as he was by their first meeting.

"I went to look for a gravestone and I found a whole new family," said Stan, of Willington, County Durham. "I had been told my dad had died so I wasn't prepared for anything like this.

"The boys didn't know about me either, although my dad and Lydia said they had been waiting for years for me to call. Now we are very close.

"Phoning Gail really changed my life. I only answered one advert and chose hers because I like blondes.

"We met when we had both come out of failed relationships and we knew from the start that this time it was right."

Stan lost touch with his father after his parents split up and he went to live with his mother in Sunderland.

Remarkably, the Young brothers all have a lot in common. Like Stan, his father and brother Alan are qualified mechanics and they are all interested in motorbikes and boats.

Now the happy couple have dropped plans to escape on Stan's 1954 Triumph Thunderbird for a quiet Gretna Green wedding.

Instead they are hiring a hall big enough to fit in all the new relatives, as well as Gail's family.