I always wanted to find my four half-sisters, and the internet has been a fantastic help.

My father married at 18, and had four daughters in quick succession. He was a Chief Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, and my mother was a teacher at St George's forces school in Hong Kong. They met, fell in love - and I was the result.

However, at that time it was very much frowned upon to be a single mother, and I was put up for adoption and lived with foster parents for six months. But when my father returned from the sea, he brought me back and he and my mother married, though they later divorced and I lost touch with him. I've since discovered that he died when I was about 20 in tragic circumstances, though he was given a funeral with full military honours. The sad thing is, he never got to meet my son - and I think he always wanted a boy, having had five daughters.

I joined the Friends Reunited site, and posted some requests for information about my half-sisters, who I knew had grown up in Perth, Scotland. I made contact with my cousin, who I hadn't seen since I was nine. It turned out she lives in Chester, and we met up. A school friend of my sisters also emailed me, giving me information about my sisters' mother, whose name was unusual enough for me to easily locate her in the directory. I called her, pretending to be an old school friend so as not to dredge up old wounds, and was given my sister Vivian's number.

When I finally talked to her, it was amazing. It turned out that she had a daughter called Leanne - and that she'd always known that my father had other children, but never knew who they were. We did arrange to meet up, but she wrote and said that she didn't want to continue the relationship. I fully respected this, but was very upset. I did write back and ask whether she had any information on her sisters, and she sent me an address in South Africa for Lorna. She is the only sister I have ever met - I last saw her in 1974 before she emigrated to South Africa with her first husband. She used to visit us, and I spent holidays with her and her husband in London.

A few months later, I got an email off Lorna's husband - she was too excited to email herself, but was very pleased to hear from me. We've been emailing ever since.

I've made lots of friends on the internet, and joked one day whilst chatting that if everyone gave me a penny, perhaps I could afford to go over to South Africa. One friend, Nick Brown, who works for Coca-Cola in Nigeria, offered to donate me his Air Miles. He sorted it all out - and my ticket to visit Lorna in May 2004 has just arrived! I'm trying my best now to collect Air Miles for my partner and son to come with me, as I'd love for them to meet my sister too.

I've learned that one of my half-sisters died a few years ago, and I don't think the fourth one would want to get in contact. But it's been amazing getting to know one of them, and I'm really looking forward to meeting Lorna at last. None of this would have been possible without the use of the internet!

December 2004: My partner, daughter and myself have just come back from a fantastic reunion with Lorna and her husband Paul, in South Africa. We stayed with them in Pretoria, and they took us for a week's holiday to Ballito - on the KwaZulu Natal Coast.

We spent many hours talking, and getting to know each other - and the most amazing thing was that my daughter, Sophie, looks so much like Lorna.

They are, hopefully, coming over to spend a few weeks with us next summer, and then we are hoping to go back in 2006/7 to spend a holiday with them in Cape Town. If it wasn't for the internet, none of this would have been possible.
Lianne Baily