A RYEDALE councillor has met up with her brother for the first time - after 45 years apart.

Coun Pamela Anderson has also had a meeting with her mother, who gave heraway when she was just three-months-old after she had been born out of wedlock in Liverpool.

Her brother Tony was born later, but it was only after a recent change in the law which enabled mothers to trace the children they gave up for adoption that her mother made contact with her from her home in Australia.

Now in her 80s, Coun Anderson's mother travelled from down under for their first meeting and gave her details of Tony's whereabouts.

"It was the first time I had met my mother. I had always known I had a brother. He went out to Australia when he was five," recalls Coun Anderson.

"Tony had not known of my existence until six years ago, when my mother came from Australia."

She corresponded with him regularly for six years and has now been to Australia to meet him and his wife and spend the holiday of a lifetime.

"We had been corresponding and e-mailing and lately speaking on the telephone, but nothing prepares you for the over-powering feelings you experience when you actually meet," said Coun Anderson.

Her brother immediately recognised her at Sydney Airport because she looked like her mother.

"He later told me I have some of her mannerisms too.

"Meeting my brother was certainly one of the highlights of my life and we are certainly going to keep in touch," said Coun Anderson.

"The holiday was a real discovery and a stunning experience for me because the only other time I had been abroad was on a short trip to Vienna and two visits to the European Parliament," said Coun Anderson.

She and a friend who accompanied her visited Bangkok, and the legendary Bridge on the River Kwai, where she laid a wreath of poppies at the Commonwealth war graves.

She then travelled to Sydney to meet Tony.

Tony acted as guide for a dream holiday which took in Bondi and Manley beaches, Woy Woy, the Blue Mountains and a concert at the Sydney Opera House.

From there they travelled to Melbourne and Adelaide and saw a wealth of Australian wildlife as well as the World Rugby Cup championships. The last two days with her brother were spent in Hong Kong.

Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, January 07, 2004