Dave Green and Andrea Urmston met while they were both working at Manchester Airport in 2005 and quickly became close friends. Over the next two years, the pair who worked in separate roles realised they could complete each other’s sentences, before discovering that Green was the adopted brother Urmston had not seen in more than 30 years.
Green was managing the bus station at the airport, while Urmston serviced the vending machines. Their friendship developed through regular texting and phone calls when they were not at work, and it was during one of those conversations that Green revealed something he had never mentioned before: he was adopted and his birth name was Stuart Proudlove.
“I was shaking, I was just shaking and my heart was pounding,” Urmston told the BBC. “I’d finally found him. It’s unbelievable.”
“I kind of froze and didn’t speak for a minute,” says Urmston. Her maiden name was Proudlove and she had a brother who was adopted before she was born.
“It’s not a very popular name and it had to be him. Other than family, I had never heard that surname anywhere else,” she added.
She immediately rang her mum, Susan, to check her long-lost brother’s birth date. They matched: 24 March 1966. She called Stuart straight back.
“I said ‘it’s got to be you, it’s got to be you’, and I said ‘I need to see you’, and so I went to pick him up,” Urmston said.
As they were driving to their mum’s, Green realised where he was. They were travelling along the bus route he used to cover before becoming a manager.
His old route had taken him right past his mum’s house, and the school that Urmston had attended. He had been within touching distance of his birth family without realising.
Susan finally meeting Green was a surreal moment. “There were lots of tears,” said Urmston, “then we just all hugged.”
“I couldn’t believe that I’d got my brother and my mum together, it was amazing.”
Urmston’s mum had told her that she had a brother when she was younger. She said he had been given up for adoption and had gone to a lovely lady who could not have children of her own.
“I immediately wanted to go and call him so we could play,” Urmston recalled. Susan said she had tried to find her son with the help of the Salvation Army, but hadn’t got anywhere.
“I asked if we could go and get him back,” Urmston said, “she did explain that it didn’t work that way, so I promised her that I would find him for her one day.”
Now they were finally being reunited.
“She had wanted that since being as young as I can remember,” Urmston said, “so yeah, I gave her that. I promised her that.”
On the mantlepiece in Susan’s home was a picture of Green as a baby. It had been sent by his adopted parents to his birth mother days after his adoption.
The same photograph had also been displayed in his adopted parents’ house.
Green had known he was adopted since he was 10 years old, and his adopted parents had shown him the paperwork. But he says he had a very happy childhood and had never harboured any desire to track down his birth mother.
“I didn’t feel like I had to go searching or have any unanswered questions,” said Green.
For all three, finding each other has been a life-changing experience.
“I went from having really not a lot of positivity in my life at the time, to finding out that my best friend was my sister,” Green added.
“I’d found my birth mum being able to sort of make her truly happy. And I’d found a family really that I never really knew existed.”
Their mum died recently, but both say they are glad she got to be reunited with her son.
“She was so desperate to find you to make sure you’d had a really good life,” Urmston said.
For Urmston the reunion is bittersweet. She had longed to find her brother for years.
“My mum and dad, they separated unfortunately and so I went through a lot of hard times knowing [Dave] was out there but I didn’t know [where].”
Both now say they are making the most of the time they have together after moving in with each other in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire. It is, they say, their “lottery win”.
Key Facts
- Dave Green and Andrea Urmston met while working at Manchester Airport in 2005.
- Green’s birth name was Stuart Proudlove, and Urmston’s maiden name was Proudlove.
- Their birth date matched on 24 March 1966.
- Green had driven past his mum’s house and Urmston’s school without realising.
- They now live together in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire.
