A great-grandfather has told how a note left on the grave of his long-lost mother helped him track down relatives he never knew he had.

John White, of Panfield Lane, Braintree, never saw his parents again after he came to the district from Edmonton in London, in 1939 aged five.

Believing his mother wanted nothing to do with him, Mr White only tried to reconnect with her family in 2011, when a friend tracked down her new name – Ivy Hodge.

John visited her grave in Edmonton cemetery.

He recalled: “I found the grave and I noticed it was nicely kept. At the bottom of the grave there was a rose bush and it had just been watered."

See this week's Braintree and Witham Times for the full story.