LONG LOST BROTHER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3879, 4 December 1928, Page 1

LONG LOST BROTHER.

JOYOUS FAMILY REUNION. “Oh, Qod, it is my brother.” This exclamation fell from the lips of a waitress when a young man whom his family had mourned as lost in the war walked, a few weeks ago, into a restaurant in Cardiff, where his two young sisters were engaged. The mail is James Powell, aged 38, who as a private in the'Royal Army Service Corps, left home in 1914 for foreign service. Two years later he was officially reported as missing, all efforts to trace him failed, and he had been given up as dead by his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Jas. Powell, whose home is at Cardiff. Quite unaware that any of his family were employed at the cafe, Powell walked into the dining-room. The band which broadcasts at midday was playing, and the young man had liardly sat down. when there followed the dramatic meeting between brother and sister. Miss Betty Powell, the waitress, walked to the table and asked the new customer for the order. Then, looking into his face, she almost screamed, “Oh, my God, it’s my brother,” and let her tray crash to the floor. “Is it you, Bet?” came the reply; and turnjng to another young man who was seated at the table, Powell said: “This is my sister. I have not seen her for twelve years.” People at the adjoining tables looked on with astonishment. Then they jumped to their feet as the young woman ran from the room to bring her sister Gladys. The management of the cafe was immediately informed of the incident and the girls were told to take their brother home. At the home of the family a knock was answered by Mrs Powell, the mother, who, seeing her son standing in front of her, simply murmured, “My boy!” She was overcome with joy. “And where have you been?” the mother asked. The son declined to make any statement except to say that he had been around the world as a companion to a gentleman connected with greyhounds. The father, who is superintendent at the Crown Fuel Works at Cardiff Docks, was soon at home to share with his family of 13 children the joyous reunion. Betty Powell, who with her sister was at her usual duties next day, said: “Before the war Jim was a chef at Messrs R. E. Jones’s cafes at Cardiff and Swansea, and it was largely his old associations that prompted him to come in here for lunch on his way from the railway station to my home.”