A brother and sister have been reunited completely by chance after losing touch more than 60 years ago – only to find out they were living just a few miles apart.

Long-lost siblings George Culwick, aged 87, and Lucy Heenan, 88, grew up together in Birmingham but lost touch in the 1940s. The pair spent decades living just four miles apart – Mr Culwick in Quinton, Birmingham, and Mrs Heenan in nearby Langley – without ever knowing where the other was.

But a chance meeting between Mr Culwick, who now lives in Stourbridge, and Mrs Heenan’s daughter-in-law, Barbara, has brought the siblings back together.

The pair have since enjoyed an emotional reunion and are enjoying getting to know each other all over again.

“I can’t put in to words how happy I am to have found him,” said Mrs Heenan, a widow who now lives in Oldbury, Smethwick. “I had not seen him since the day I left home and we were reunited completely by chance.

“I had thought about him a lot over the years – he was the youngest in the family so you can imagine he was always a favourite in our house growing up.”

Mr Culwick, who moved to a retirement complex in Drury Lane following the death of his wife Sally, aged 88, two years ago, spent his youth travelling the country with his engineering firm after leaving the home he shared with his parents and sisters Lucy and Lily.

The great-grandfather assumed his older sister was dead until his son Reg dragged him to a family ancestry meeting at Birmingham Art Gallery where he bumped into Barbara Heenan.

Mr Culwick said: “I won’t make any excuses for us losing touch – things just got left for so long that we each assumed the other had passed on.”