Two strangers who met at work realised they were siblings after becoming best friends
A man who was adopted when he was a baby was astonished to discover that one of his co-workers was actually his biological sister, and he'd been working with her for two years before he realised it.
Back in 2005 Dave Green had a job managing the bus station at Manchester Airport when he met Andrea Urmston, who sorted out the vending machines.
Together they developed the kind of friendship that makes work life somewhat bearable and for the next couple of years they were good friends at work, but then in 2007 a conversation about fostering uncovered a much deeper connection.
Dave, 60, said he'd been adopted as a baby and Andrea, 53, said she knew she'd had a brother her family had put up for adoption.
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It didn't take long for them to put their heads together and figure out the details behind everything, and to realise they had the same mother.
He'd been born as Stuart Proudlove, which was Andrea's maiden name, and when she learned that she realised all the pieces fit for Dave to be her biological brother.
"I kind of froze and didn't speak for a minute," said Andrea to the BBC, since she was processing the fact she'd been working right alongside her brother for the past two years and only just learned it now.
"It's not a very popular name and it had to be him. Other than family, I had never heard that surname anywhere else."
She called her mum Susan, who'd given birth to Dave at 15, to ask about birthdays and got the answer 24 March, 1966, which was also Dave's birthday and she told him 'it's got to be you'.
Dave ended up coming round to see his biological mum for the first time, with Andrea saying it was 'something she had wanted so much and she just couldn’t believe it'.
“It was a surreal moment, there was lots of tears and then we all just hugged. I couldn’t believe that I’d got my brother and my mum together," she said.
While they might have lived apart for most of their lives once the siblings realised they were related they noticed a lot of similarities between themselves.
Both Dave and Andrea like their tea the same way and have a passion for tomato sauce butties.
“People don’t meet like that, it’s not what happens in everyday life, but ours are not everyday lives any more," Dave said, adding that he realised that as a bus driver he'd gone past his biological mother's house very often.
He said: “I have always thought it’s not what you have in your life it’s who you have in your life.
“Somebody or something gave me the thumbs up that day and things will never be the same again, things haven’t been the same for 20 years and they’re not going to be ever again because I’ve got the one thing in my life that I need to make it special.”
The siblings have since moved in with each other in Staffordshire.
Joe Harker