AS Enos Jackson walked into the lobby of the hotel in Darlington, a smile of recognition spread across the face of his Army pal.

Enos may not have seen Peter Worthy for 37 years, but the pair quickly found the conversation flowed freely about the old days.

Stories about their time in the Army Catering Corps, when they were posted at Aden, in the Middle East, during the 1960s, were soon forthcoming.

Their emotional reunion was made possible by The Northern Echo after Enos, 74, wrote to our Friday Tracer column to find his friend.

After years of wondering what the other was up to, the Echo then arranged for a face-to-face meeting.

And thanks to the Kings Head Hotel, in Darlington, and Arriva Trains Northern, the pair were finally reunited this week.

Sitting in the hotel lobby, Peter, accompanied by his wife, Margaret, said: "You can appreciate, if you were working in a kitchen where you're feeding about 1,000 people every meal, you either got on with people or you didn't.

"I think we both had the same Northern humour, and I liked a drink and so did he. "

Their time in Aden included tough working conditions, breaking 1,000 eggs over a hot stove while the outside temperature soared to 35C, but plenty of enjoyable nights in the sergeants' mess.

But the pair lost touch when Peter, who was a staff sergeant, was posted back to England, and Enos, a sergeant, went to Germany in 1964.

After the Army, they both went into the catering industry.

Enos had tried previously to find his old friend and failed, but decided to try again when he saw the Tracer column.

"When I saw it in the paper, I wrote to him on the same night and later the telephone rang and it was him," said Peter, 73, who lives in Leeming Bar, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire.

"We spent about an hour on the phone catching up."

After their face-to-face reunion Enos said: "It just seems like yesterday, you get older yes, but he hasn't changed. I knew it was him straightaway."

Now the friends are planning to meet again, when Enos travels back to the North from his home in Holmes Chapel, near Crewe.