Two sisters who never knew the other existed despite living just 15 minutes away have finally met after a desperate Facebook plea.
Jean Barrow stumbled across the social media post from a woman named Joan who said she grew up a couple of streets away in Salford and had a bus driver for a dad.
The message confirmed had a half-sister, something the 67-year-old had been told on a family holiday nearly four decades earlier.
Joan Constantine, 77, had posted on a group called “We grew up in Salford” asking if anybody knew of her father, Jim Harris, whom she had never met.
Jean recognised the name and details, and quickly realised that Joan was her long lost half-sister that her father had in a previous marriage.
The pair only knew rumours of each other’s existence.
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Mother-of-two Jean had thought she was an only child after her older brother David, died when she was 17.
Her dad, Jim Harris, was drove tanks during WW2, and eventually became a bus driver in Salford until he passed away in 2014 aged 101.
While on a family holiday he told Jean, then 19, that he had been married before and had a daughter who was ten years older than her.
Jean says that was all his father or mother Annie ever said about the situation, and she was hesitant to ask more after realising it was a contentious topic.
Jean said: “He just came out with it one day and that was basically it, he wouldn’t really talk about it much, and I got more information off my mum that he wasn’t allowed to see his daughter.
“I just became aware at the age of 19 that this woman existed, normally I’d be really happy to find out I had a sister, but there was something about this story that I knew I couldn’t go looking into.
“Over the years I’d think about her, and they weren’t always friendly thoughts because I’d ask myself why she hasn’t tried to find us.”
But older sister Joan, who also thought she was an only child, had been trying to find her dad for years.
The 77-year-old mum-of-two now lives in Berkshire, and says she always wanted to know more about her dad but was unable to because of her ‘controlling’ mum who died in 2014.
She said: “I always felt a connection to my dad, he and my mother split up when I was very young, but I always felt that he loved me.
“I knew he was there for my birth so I knew he would have held me and I think that connection always remained.
“Me and Jean have lived two different lives, she comes from a very loving family and my mum was very controlling and I was never allowed to ask about my dad.”
Joan spoke about a missed opportunity she had to meet her father, when she was 15 and rode the bus that Jim drove to work.
Joan said: “I started working at 15, and I would take the number one from Langworthy Road to Pendleton Church and then the bus to Manchester.
“Dad was a bus driver in Eccles and he drove the number one bus, he must have noticed me.
“One morning I got on the bus and his wife Annie was sat next to me, I didn’t know her at the time.
“She tapped me on the knee and said ‘that bus driver is your dad, do you want to go and meet him?
“I was in shock, I just panicked and didn’t say anything and just got off the next stop.
“I was scared of my mum blowing up if she ever found out.”
Joan eventually got married and moved out of Salford to set up her life down south with a husband and two children in her mid twenties.
Cursing her missed opportunities but knowing her father’s name, she said she continued to look for him through registries, ancestry websites and even visited a mystic to ask if she would ever find her father.
She said: “I always felt like there was something inside me, I felt as though there was a thread connecting me and my dad.”
She said she finally got the courage to put the post on the Facebook group after being encouraged by a friend.
Jean added: “It was almost as if it was fate. There’s this status from this lady and she started saying these things like her maiden name being Harris, like mine, where she lived, that her dad was a bus driver.
“I’m reading this and I couldn’t believe it, I’m getting goosebumps now just thinking about it.
“I had to read it several times, and the best thing about it for me was that she said she was so sad that she didn’t know my dad.
“I couldn’t just do nothing, so I got in touch, I knew who she was, that was my sister.”
Jean messaged Joan the next day sending photos of her dad and his driving licence.
After a moment of ‘shock’, Joan called Jean the following day and the pair were beside themselves.
Jean said: “She rang me and we were both as giddy as anything.
“We spent six months talking on the phone and it was like we’d always known each other.
“We just immediately got on, I was the one who had to prove myself, that I wasn’t just some random woman having a laugh.”
Due to the pandemic the pair couldn’t meet as soon as possible and had to wait six months after making contact when restrictions were lifted.
The pair have been making up for all those years missed connecting the dots and introducing children and grandchildren to each other.
Despite never meeting in person until now, both sisters inherited their father’s love for driving.
Jean who now lives in Stockport was a driving instructor for 20 years and Joan, now retired, is an avid driver.
So much so that Jean gifted Joan their father’s driving gloves which she wears to feel close to him.
Joan said: “Jean has been so generous. She’s let me into the family and given me things that belonged to my dad.
“People search for years and they never find something they’re looking for.
“Growing up I always thought I was an only child but my sister lived just 15 minutes away.
“I’m so happy I feel like I could burst, it’s fabulous, just fabulous!”
