FAMILY reunions are usually happy occasions, filled with joy as long-lost relatives share memories of their missing years.

But for Eddie Humphries and his son Colin, the mood was somewhat different, as the pair struggled to come to terms with the death of their son and brother, Stephen.

And as they battled with their emotions, after not seeing one another since 1969, they told The Northern Echo their heartbreaking story.

Eddie and his wife lived in their Stockton-on-Tees home with their four children - Stephen, Colin, Pamela and Michael - until 1952, when Mrs Humphries walked out.

Their father struggled to cope with the burdens of caring for four young children, and he had to give them up. Colin and Pamela were given foster homes, Michael lived in a care home in Bishop Auckland, and Stephen spent his childhood in Chilton Family Group Home.

Friends said Stephen was a likeable youngster, who loved the children's programme The Addams Family, and had the nickname Uncle Fester because of his kindness and passing physical likeness to the character.

The children's lives went in separate directions, with Colin moving to Oxfordshire where he settled down and married wife Joelle, and Stephen remaining in the North-East, at one point returning to live with his father in Stockton. Eddie and his son, after re-establishing contact, lost touch when Stephen moved out to live in his sheltered house in Darlington.

Colin saw his father for the last time in 1969, but also lost contact.

However, determined to track down his family, Colin traced Stephen two years ago after years of painstaking searches through Internet archives of children's care homes.

"It was really just a matter of looking through every record, and then through a process of elimination," said Colin.

The delighted brothers met again in 2003, and Stephen shared Colin's house for a short time, becoming an adored uncle to five-year-old Chloe and an integral part of Colin's family unit.

Although Stephen returned to Darlington - tragically only three weeks before his murder - the pair vowed never to lose touch again.

"We wanted to keep seeing each other often, and we were planning to visit him about once a month. We were going to start arranging something for Christmas," said Colin.

But then, on Thursday last week, came the news of Stephen's death in an alley behind the Nag's Head pub, in Darlington town centre, leaving Colin and his family devastated.

However, through the heartache has come a moment that Colin and Eddie have waited 36 years for - the day when they met again.

As Eddie, now in ill health, met his son, daughter-in-law and young granddaughter yesterday, the family fought-back tears as they struggled to cope with their emotions.

Colin said: "I'm so pleased I found Stephen again I have some very happy memories.

"And although this is the most horrible time for all of us, it has brought me closer to my dad at last."

Eddie, now 75, said he was overjoyed at the reunion, but was finding the circumstances difficult to cope with.

"I really can't control what I feel at the minute," he said.

"Seeing my family again after all these years, but at the same time having to deal with these circumstances, I'm not sure I can take it. It's too much all at once. I've been through the mill, and am not well. It's a lot to deal with."

And he added, sadly: "Thinking of what's happened to Steve, this is not the way I wanted the reunion to happen."