On Christmas Eve in 1944, as London was hit by the intense bombing of the “Baby Blitz”, John Moore was left abandoned on the street. Just days old, he was picked up by a policeman and taken to St Thomas’s Hospital – but his origins and details of his family remained a mystery.
Four years later, he was adopted into a loving family in Kennington, south London, where he lived a “happy” childhood. Between school and helping his neighbours with their market stalls on weekends, his busy life left little time for wondering where he had come from.
Little did he know that his biological father and his half-brother, Lucas Borg, who was born 11 years after Mr Moore, were living just a mile away in Kennington. The pair grew up within touching distance but remained unaware of each other’s existence until a Christmas present from Lucas’s daughter changed everything.
“I had a happy life,” Mr Moore told The Independent. “I had a wonderful mother and father and two brothers. My only concern growing up was: did my biological family know that I survived, that I was safe and had a good life?
“I never really thought much about how to find my biological family,” he explained. “I wouldn’t have known how.”
Decades passed, and the two half-brothers each started their own families. The first inkling of their shared heritage came when Mr Moore’s son took a DNA test through his work and discovered he had Maltese heritage.
Curious about the revelation, Mr Moore decided to take a similar at-home test from a different provider to see if it gave him the same outcome. The results were definitive – one of his parents, who had always been a mystery to him, was from Malta.
Several years later, Mr Borg’s daughter Ella received a MyHeritage DNA test as a Christmas present from her husband, Ryan. She was astonished to find a close match with a man she had never heard of – a man who also had Maltese heritage and had links to south London. It was enough to convince Mr Borg to take a test himself.
“It came back a 50 per cent match with John,” Mr Borg, now aged 70, said. “It was a surprise because I’d always wanted a brother or sister, but my mother couldn’t have any more children.
“It was such a shock.”
Mr Moore, now aged 80, was also stunned to discover he had a family he had never known. “I didn’t expect anything from the DNA as regards to family because of the time factor,” he said. “You know, if anybody had been part of me, they could have now passed on. It’s been so many years.”
The pair reached out to each other and began to share stories and memories. On Easter Sunday this year, they met in person for the first time in what they described as an “emotional” and “nerve-wracking” reunion.
“I was very nervous at first,” Mr Moore said. “I didn’t know whether to shake Lucas’s hand or give him a hug because you’ve never met a person that’s half your genes.”
But conversation flowed, and they soon learnt they had striking similarities in their upbringing – from frequenting Manor Place swimming baths in Kennington, to the pie and mash shop where they were regulars.
Mr Moore discovered his biological father, George, had come to the UK from Malta when he was 18 with nothing but a piece of cheese and a slice of bread.
George, who couldn’t speak English when he arrived, went on to serve in the Merchant Navy and is remembered by Mr Borg as a “kind” and “humble” family man.
The pair said it has “taken time” to go from feeling like strangers to brothers, but that they are glad to have been reunited through the DNA test.
“It’s quite incredible how close we were, but so far apart at the same time,” Mr Moore said.
“It’s a shame that George, our father, didn’t know that John was around, because he would have treated him as a son as well,” Mr Borg added. “He was that sort of person. He was a very nice person, and he would have embraced John as his son.”
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