FOR 57 years, two old shipmates didn't know whether each other had lived or died in some of the worst sea battles of the Second World War.

Young Navy recruits John Connor and Jim Alderson had been friends for just a few months when they went their separate ways in 1943.

But the close bond the two 'Geordie' lads forged half way across the world brought them back together this week in John's North-East home.

Although they spent the years since the war hundreds of miles apart - John kept his roots in Willington, County Durham, while Jim settled in Middlesex - thoughts of each other were never far from their minds.

Then, by chance, former engineer Jim saw his old pal's name and address flashed on a Teletext appeal for former comrades and didn't hesitate to get in touch.

When he knocked on John's door in Hall Lane, Willington, the years fell away. John, now a 79-year-old retired council worker, and 81-year-old Jim were the same two fun loving sailors who shared adventures at sea and on shore.

John, from Willington, in County Durham, and Jim, born in South Moor, near Stanley, had sailed on the same ship HMS Guardian for some time before they met, by chance, in a dockland camp in Columbo, Ceylon.

For the next ten months they were inseparable. Their experience, Jim as a stoker and John as an able seaman, earned them shore duties as policemen escorting prisoners from Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, to Secundrabad, in India.

Then they were able to make their way back home, picking up an Army merchant cruiser, the P and O liner HMS Carthage, before eventually parting in Devonport.

Jim said: "We were two Northern lads who looked after each other. But, even though we in the same escort groups after that, we never met.

"We went through some terrible things on the Russian convoys, the North African landings and in the Atlantic and we were lucky to survive. I always wondered what happened to John. Now I know - he is just the same bright young man he always was."