A FORMER Stroud resident is appealing for help as she embarks on a search for the brother she never knew she had.

Helen Revell, 72, now of Beckford near Tewkesbury, was only told a few weeks’ ago at a family reunion that she has a half-brother that her parents never wanted her to know about.

The boy was fathered by Helen’s dad, Ronald ‘Ron’ Minty, while he was manager of Stroud electrical store J&M Stone in the 1950s and the family lived in Chalford.

It is believed that Ron met a woman at the store who Helen only knows as Bubbles.

Helen, an only child, desperately wants to meet her sibling, who she believes would be about 64.

“I feel great pain for not having had the opportunity to know him,” Mrs Revell says.

According to extended family members, Ron supported his son but he lived his life without any real contact with him, which has left Helen feeling “so very sad.”

Unfortunately for Helen, she has no other information about her brother, apart from that his mother went by the name of Bubbles.

“It has come back to me that when I was a young adult, a boy did ring our home and told me that he was my brother. Unfortunately my mother dismissed it as a cruel joke.”

Sadly, Ron died in March 1997, with Helen’s mother, Mary, following only weeks later. They were married for 51 years.

Relatives told Helen they believe she was not told because her mother did not want her to think badly of her father, who she adored.

“I had a sunny, fabulous childhood and I adored my father, but I’m so angry that my parents didn’t tell me about my brother or even leave a note after their deaths. I have been alone without immediate relatives for 22 years and I long to meet my brother.”

If anyone has information to help Helen in her search, please contact the SNJ.