"I helped to reunite long lost cousins"

"I work in an AA Call Centre in Newcastle, and being from the area I naturally have a Geordie accent. So I wasn’t surprised when one caller, who needed a wheel change, asked me if I was a local. He then told me that he once came to the north east looking for his cousin who he hadn’t seen for 50 years, but had no luck.

"He explained that he'd previously worked for the AA, and that his cousin’s name was Billy Hindmarsh. I said that that was the same name as a man who lived at the end of the road where my sister lives, and whose kids I used to play with. We both wondered if he might be the same Billy Hindmarsh.

"In my lunch break I called my sister and she confirmed that Billy did still live in her street. I then found his phone number and called him and told him the whole story about his long lost cousin.

"I'm pleased to say that not long afterwards the two of them met up and got on like it was only yesterday that they’d last seen each other."

David Drape-Comyn, AA Customer Adviser