LIFE has gone in a complete circle for Gerard and Dorothy Fairclough. For, after a working life spent in South Africa and in Australia (where they lived for quarter of a century) the couple finally returned to their Haydock roots.

They now live in West End Road, just a stride or two from where Gerard was born more than 60 years ago.

He and his wife's far-flung experiences have been pieced together following an appeal on this page (July 27) from German businessman Herbert Weiss who formed a shipboard friendship with the Faircloughs and their then toddler son, Paul, during the mid-1960s.

Herbert forwarded a treasured photograph featuring himself, his late wife and his son (now a business high-flier in the USA) together with the Fairclough family. It was taken aboard the Stirling Castle.

Herbert was desperately keen to be put back into contact with Gerard and Dorothy. And, hey presto, his wish has now been fulfilled!

Gerard got in touch with me at the Star, and it turns out that he was actually a school colleague of mine for a spell during the mid-1940s.

I was fascinated to learn what had happened to him and his Haydock-born wife during the many years since. "My son Paul was only 19-months old when we emigrated to Cape Town, leaving aboard the Edinburgh Castle, in 1960," writes Gerard, who took with him a two-year contract with Premier Springs in South Africa, from the Parr firm of Crosby's Springs.

They stayed for 3-years, returning to England on the Stirling Castle in 1964. That's when they met up with the Weiss family, and like Herbert, the Faircloughs never forgot that friendship. By an amazing coincidence, the couple were chatting about them with an old school chum of Dorothy's shortly before Herbert forwarded his 'please find them' plea in the Star.

"Herbert and I have now talked on the phone and we are going to correspond with each other," says Gerard.

It had proved a short homecoming for the Haydock family who emigrated to Melbourne in Australia during 1966 and stayed there for 25 years. Gerard worked for 18 years as a senior analyst in materials management with General Motors at their Port Melbourne HQ, while Dorothy was a jewellery maker for 16 years.

Paul, who they took out as a toddler, is now a happily married 41-year-old family man with a gardening franchise. "He never knew much about England and is really Aussie in outlook," says Gerard.

Not so his parents. For even after so long away from these shores, Gerard and Dorothy felt the tug of their hometown ties after taking early early retirement in 1991.

"We are now OAP's (just!) and are enjoying retirement," reports Gerard, "though, personally, I miss my job in Australia.

"But," he signs off with firm finality, "we have managed to settle and don't plan to ever move again."

WHAT a smashing conclusion to that 'long-lost friends' appeal.