discovered they have been living 90 minutes apart back in Britain.

Ms Cross, 32, was born in the Island but was separated from her mother when she was very young.

Her parents divorced and her father took her to England when she was nine.

When Ms Cross returned to the Island last week she didn't know if her mom was alive or dead.

But she appealed in The Royal Gazette for help, and locals who remembered the family rushed to her aid.

Although her mother had also moved back to England, Mr. Mansfield Allen and his wife Janice had kept in touch with her.

The Allens contacted Ms Cross and invited her to their Pembroke home, where she called her mother.

She found they live just 90 minutes' drive from each other.

Ms Cross was too overwhelmed to talk about her discovery. She said: "Wait until it hits me.'' But her mother, Mrs. Rowena Cross, spoke to the Gazette yesterday from her home in Cambridge.

"I heard from Jenny last night,'' she said. "It's been a long saga but I've never given up hope.

"It was right out of the blue -- totally unexpected.

"She doesn't live very far from me. She's at Aylesbury, which is an hour and a half's drive away, so it's very close.

"As soon as she gets home we'll get together. It's absolutely terrific.'' Mrs. Cross said she had tried to blot out the painful memory of losing Jenny and her two brothers.

"My husband left Bermuda while he had temporary custody of them. I couldn't stop him. He simply disappeared.

"I went to the Salvation Army and they found him, but he refused to divulge his whereabouts. I just had to try to get over it.'' In Bermuda Mrs. Cross had two more sons, twins, after her marriage to Ms Cross's father broke up.

She said they were thrilled to hear their half-sister had got in touch. She and the twins lived in St. David's and she worked at the US Naval Air Station.

"The people of St. David's were absolutely wonderful to me because I was on my own,'' she said.

"But I lived all over the place -- I was very well known.'' Mrs. Cross said that when she found out her daughter was in Bermuda, she searched out old pictures of her.

"All the photographs came out and I had a good cry over them. "But once I got over the shock it was just something that made me very happy.'' Mrs. Cross, 58, spent 20 years in Bermuda. Her experiences will be a major part of a book she is writing about her life.

The Allens were reunited with Ms Cross on Monday night.

"It was quite a reunion,'' said Mrs. Allen. "We sat down and pieced things together. It was fairly emotional.

"My husband worked with her mother at the US base and we all got quite close.

Jenny looks very much like her mom.

"She lives a short drive from her mother -- it was so weird.'' Also at the reunion was Mrs. Allen's cousin Mrs. Lorna Woolridge.

Mrs. Woolridge's mother helped care for Ms Cross and her two brothers when their parents broke up.

"We'd given up hope that this would ever happen,'' said Mrs. Woolridge.