MARY Mellor was just 14 when she waved goodbye to her friend, Edna Roworth, after the war had thrown them together for their high school years.

This week, Edna crossed the Atlantic from New York to Blackpool to look up her closest wartime friend, in a poignant reunion that brought them back together after more than 50 years.

High heels and high hairdos had made way for brogues, grandchildren and the odd wrinkle - but the pair were soon laughing, reminiscing and contemplating their 70th birthdays which both fall next month!

The two girls had been inseparable - but lost touch when they left school and the then Mary O'Hare started work as a weaver and lived in Hoddleston. Mary was just 17 when she married Ronnie who was in the RAF and while he went to Africa, she stayed home and had daughter, Diane, who was 18 months old when she first saw her father.

Edna married an American and, following in the footsteps of thousands of GI brides, she went to America and settled in New York.

Though Mary sent letters over the years, they were always returned and she had no way of finding out where her friend was living.

She said: "I couldn't start to think how I could ever find Edna in America.

"Then I got a call out of the blue. She had tracked down my son in Darwen and he gave her my number in Blackpool. When she rang to arrange her visit, she spoke with a Yankee twang!

"All my family is in Darwen, but I have married again and moved to the Fylde so she was very lucky to find me." Mary now lives in Hornsea Avenue, South Shore, where her husband, Terry, works at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

Edna celebrates her 70th birthday on September 30 and Mary marks her milestone birthday next Thursday. She said meeting up with her friend was the "icing on the cake!"

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