As she made plans to celebrate with her husband, Ernest, 80-year-old Audrey Gilder, from Walton, Peterborough, received the call she had dreamt of for more than six decades.

All the years of longing since 1946 were over when the voice on the other end of the line said: "Hello mum."

It wiped away all the tears great-grandmother Audrey had shed since being forced to give up her son for adoption at a time when it was seen as a scandal to have a baby out of wedlock.

In a real-life story that could have come from a saga by Catherine Cookson, mother and son found each other against all the odds.

Audrey learned that the baby she had named Philip White was now 62-year-old Alf Belcher, and, astonishingly, they had been living just 20 miles apart all the time they had been missing each other.

Today, with hours and hours of talking to bring each other up to date behind them, Audrey said: "We are so pleased to welcome Alf into our family and catch up on all those years. I never thought this would happen."

Alf, who lives just down the A1 in Alconbury, near Huntingdon, is delighted to be welcomed into his mother's family, because he never gave up searching for her.

His breakthrough came after getting a copy of his birth certificate and trying to find his mother in Abbots Ripton, near Huntingdon, where she had lived.

Eventually, after several false leads, it was through a coincidence that he was put in touch with someone who knew his mother, and he was able to tell him where she lived.

Afraid of rejection, however, Alf was extremely nervous when he made that first call, but he got a warm reception and it led to a face-to-face visit at her home in Mountsteven Avenue.

Audrey said: "He rang the doorbell and I just knew he was my son, because he was the image of my brother, Peter."

After hugs and kisses, Alf was keen to hear everything that had happened to his mum, and there was an automatic invitation to the diamond wedding celebrations, and the chance to meet other members of his family for the first time.

Telling her story, Audrey said: "When I told my mum I had fallen pregnant she would not let me keep him. She ruled the roost in those days, and what she said went."

Audrey was sent away in disgrace for the duration of her confinement, with only fleeting visits from her boyfriend and now husband, Ernest (87), to keep her going.

Alf then went first to a children's home, before being put up for private adoption to a older couple in their 50s, who were known to Audrey's mother.

Audrey and Ernest finally tied the knot in 1948, and the couple moved to Newborough, near Peterborough, soon after to begin a new life.