Photograph in paper sees old friends reunited after 85 years

TWO childhood sweethearts have been reunited after 85 years thanks to an old school photo.

- John Dingwall

Jim Dougal and Betty Davidson used to walk to school together hand-in-hand in Eyemouth in Berwickshire in the 1930s.

They lost touch after Jim's family moved away in 1939, but his son Alistair's efforts to trace all the members of a class photo from 1936 brought them back together.

The old friends met again recently in North Yorkshire and Alistair said: “To describe it as a magical moment would be a gross understatement.”

Jim, 96, who now lives in Essex, was born in Eyemouth in 1928.

His son was researching the family ancestry when he was made aware of a class photo at Eyemouth Primary taken in 1936, when his father was about eight years old.

He set out with the help of his father's “astonishing long-term memory” - to find out what had happened to the other children in the image.