Meet-up follows article in Herald

Author Donald McDonald has met up with his former babysitter after the Herald put the pair back in touch with each other.
Donald McDonald with his books, The Bridge, A Village Tale and For the Glory of Stevenson SUS-150411-095534003Donald McDonald with his books, The Bridge, A Village Tale and For the Glory of Stevenson SUS-150411-095534003
Donald McDonald with his books, The Bridge, A Village Tale and For the Glory of Stevenson SUS-150411-095534003

Mr McDonald featured in the paper last November when he made a sentimental journey back to Worthing, his home town.

Helen Harris, who now lives in Coneyhurst, saw the article and contacted the paper, asking to be put in touch with him. They have been corresponding ever since.

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Donald, who lives in Lincolnshire, surprised her with a visit last month during a return trip to Worthing.

“It was lovely to see him,” she said.

“In the days when you could look in a babies’ prams and ‘chuckle’ them, I got talking to his mother.

“She said I could take him out for a walk and I did her shopping for her. I was ten years old.”

That was when the McDonald family lived in Chesterfield Road, Worthing, and Helen lived round the corner.

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She added: “I had not seen him since I was about 18 or 19. They moved to Malta and Mrs McDonald asked me to go with them but my father refused to let me.

“When they came back about three or four years later, she found where I was working and told me where they were staying, so I went down to see her. That was the last time I saw them.”

Donald said he recalled Helen taking photographs of them with her Box Brownie camera and pushing him about in the pram while shopping for his mother.

“It was very sentimental meeting up with Helen after over half a century,” he said.

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His latest book, 9/12 Another Day, will be published on September 30 and priced £9.95.

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