Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I want to tell you why I love podcasting.

Hi, my name's Tommy Dixon, and I make podcasts for the BBC.

I'm a big fan of stories, always loved a good book.

But when I started commuting for my first job, I discovered podcasts.

I was blown away by how a creative idea and the right mixture of sounds could take you into

a whole new world full of incredible stories. You know, the type that make you go, wow. And that kind of inspired me to

give it a go myself, which to cut a long story short led to a BBC training scheme and a whole

new career giving other people that exact same feeling. So if you want to hear amazing stories

that make you go wow like I did, they're just a tap or click away on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Life doesn't always turn out in quite the way you might have

imagined. And sometimes you fantasise about something that might happen, a reunion perhaps,

that may not actually occur in the way you'd dreamt about.

This is a case in point, but it isn't an unhappy story, I should say.

Steve Ellis is a retired journalist and a grandfather.

He was born in Halifax in Yorkshire in 1951 and he now lives in Kent.

Now, back in the late 80ss he was busy in London working on the

launch of a new magazine when a letter arrived for him at work. It was from his mum and it contained

some shocking revelations, one of which would reverberate for 30 odd years. It was a Friday. It was

the 1st of July, 1988. Strangely enough, I remember

the next day was Saturday, and it was when Steffie Graff beat Martina Navratilova in Wimbledon.

So this letter arrived from my mother, midday, among several letters. And I physically shook with the shock of it because

I was 37 years of age and I discovered the name of my father. And it was the first time she'd ever

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