A BROTHER and sister have enjoyed an emotional reunion in Australia, courtesy of the BEN.

Australian-born Janice Oldaker met her brother Gordon after an elaborate search for him which became a mini-detective story.

She had travelled thousands of miles to Bolton to meet him -- only to find out he lived in Australia too.

It was only last year that relatives dropped the bombshell that Janice had a brother during her father's funeral.

But despite an extensive search and several encouraging leads, she failed to track down an address for Gordon Teasdale.

After an appeal in the BEN Gordon's aunt, Doris Nicholson, who still lives in Bolton, contacted Janice in Victoria, Australia.

Janice was amazed to hear that by a strange coincidence, Gordon was also living in Australia after emigrating 12 years ago.

Doris was able to provide Janice and her husband, Doug, with a 10-year old address for Gordon in Queensland.

Janice and Doug embarked on an extensive search of Queensland's electoral rolls before using a similar search mechanism on the Internet.

While they could not find Gordon, they discovered a phone number for the next-door neighbour of his ex-wife!

The neighbour contacted her and she was only too happy to put them in touch with each other.

They finally met-up last weekend in in Brisbane when Janice and Doug flew from Melbourne for an emotional reunion.

Doug said: "Emotions were high when the meeting occurred and they spent hours talking and recalling events that had happened to each of them in their lives.

"We spent the whole day catching-up and we can't thank the BEN enough."