Overjoyed Mary-Anne Palmer set out to find her long lost dad - and discovered a sister she never knew she had.

Mary-Anne is still searching for her father Alfred Ferguson but is catching up on lost time with Pauline Little.

The Cambridgeshire sales manager had spent weeks trying to find Mr Ferguson in his native Sunderland.

The call which changed the 45-year-old's life came two weeks ago.

Mary-Anne had turned to a local paper in Sunderland in a bid to trace the father she last saw 42 years ago.

More than 300 miles from Cambridge, Pauline read the article at her home in Hendon, Sunderland.

Mary-Anne said: "I did not know anything about Pauline and she did not know anything about me.

"But I was packing up to move out of my house when the phone rang.

"Pauline said, 'I think you are my sister' and I started crying. I can't describe how emotional it was."

Picking up the story, Pauline said: "I sent a picture of myself and my dad to Mary-Anne, and she said the likeness was uncanny.

"There was no doubt that we are sisters."

Pauline, a mother of six, and Mary-Anne, who has two children, recently came face-to-face for the first time.

Travelling from their Cambridgeshire and Sunderland homes, they met in York where they spent the day shopping.

Pauline said: "We are going to stay in touch and have become very close over the last few weeks. We are determined to look for our dad together."

Alfred disappeared from the sisters' lives when they were both very young.

He was a Sunderland steeplejack who was posted to Bedford while serving with the Black Watch in 1955.

Mary-Anne's mother, Doris Palmer, had a relationship with Alfred and then returned to her husband.

Alfred returned to his wife - the mother of Pauline - but that relationship later collapsed.

Pauline, now 52, briefly stayed in touch with her father, but the weekend visits stopped when she was seven years old.

The Sunderland housewife said: "He was a loving dad but he used to travel a lot and I think that had a lot to do with it. We lost touch."

The sisters fear they might not now have much time to track down Alfred, who will be 76 if still alive.

According to family rumours, he may be seriously ill.

Mary-Anne said: "Our fear is that if we find him he will not recognise us because we were told that he had a brain tumour. At least we have each other."