FIVE generations of a North-East family gathered together to celebrate the birth of a baby boy.

Great-great grandmother Dora Highley had to wait a few weeks until members of each of the five generations, spanning 87 years, were able to get together.

The venue was the home of her eldest daughter, 66-year-old Mary Tomlinson, at High Stoop, near Tow Law.

Mrs Highley, from Fencehouses, near Chester-le-Street, was delighted to be introduced to her great-great grandson, two-month-old Jack Edward Byrne.

Jack was accompanied by his mother, Gemma, 23, and her father Edward, 43, both from Blaydon, near Gateshead.

Gemma gave birth to Jack in Gateshead, on June 30.

Mrs Tomlinson said her mother had feared the gathering might never take place, because of the difficulty in bringing five generations together.

"She was going on about it for a while beforehand, and she was really excited when we managed to get everyone together," she said.

Mrs Highley was born in Philadelphia, near Sunderland, in 1913. She left the North-East to go into service in Abertillery, South Wales, where she met and married her husband, Joseph.

They later moved to Birmingham, but they were bombed out of their home during the Second World War.

Mrs Tomlinson, the eldest of six children, remembers being evacuated to Helmsley, in North Yorkshire.

Mrs Highley returned to the North-East with her family to settle in Fencehouses after the death of her brother Jack's wife. Since then the family has expanded and settled throughout the region.

Mrs Tomlinson organised the family get-together with her son and granddaughter.

"I don't think she ever thought she would see the day, but she's very happy now, and I've just shown her the photographs, so she has a keepsake of the occasion," said Mrs Tomlinson.