By Rebecca Needham.
For the first 24 years of his life, 43-year-old Paul Bilton was surrounded by a loving family in his hometown of Stocksbridge. Over the years, this once “tight-knit” household slowly fragmented to the point where Paul was clueless about the whereabouts of his parents and sibling. But, on April 5, 2011, he received an unanticipated message from an estranged cousin via social networking site, Facebook.
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| Paul Bilton: Reunited with his family at last. |
Ironically, Paul decided to embrace the social networking era only weeks before, after his girlfriend surprised him with an iPhone 4. After logging into his newly formed Facebook account he was shocked to find a friend request from Debbie Cross – a cousin he hadn’t seen for 35 years. What he was about to discover would change his life forever:
“Hi Paul, I have something important to talk you about – there’s no easy way to say this. It’s about your dad - I’m so sorry, but he’s dead.”
Paul’s parents divorced in 1987 and his mother, Julie, moved away from their family home in Bracken Moor Lane, Stocksbridge. But Paul remained close with his father, Frank, until 1991. Frank gained employment in a large security company in Reading and left Stockbridge with Paul’s younger brother, Brian – over the years, the bond of father and son was sadly diminished by the distance.
Frank continued to work for ‘BCB Security’ for 27 years. He passed away at the age of 65 due to heart failure – two days after retiring, and one day after his birthday.
Paul said: “I was expecting somebody to track me down at some point in my life to tell me my parents had died – I just didn’t expect it to be so soon. At first I didn’t feel much emotion; I’ve rebuilt my life entirely over the past 20 years without any of my family, and on some level I didn’t feel that I had lost anyone close to me.”
However, Paul’s feelings changed as the funeral drew closer: “I began to feel anxious – I wondered how my girlfriend would feel meeting my family. We’ve been together for three years and she had never met any of my relatives.”
“When the hearse pulled up to the crematorium, the harsh reality finally hit me – this was the last time I would ever see the father I was so close to in my younger years.”
Paul stayed strong throughout the service, and with the support of his girlfriend he stayed around to find out more about the family life he’d missed out on for almost half of his life.
“I was shocked and upset to discover six of my aunties and uncle had also passed away, and my mother, Julie, had not been in contact with the family in years.”
This gave Paul the determination to embrace the family he still had: “I was happy to meet my father’s partner, Janet – the woman who had made him happy for the last eight years of his life. But the greatest accomplishment for me was being reintroduced to my younger brother.”
35-year-old, Brian Bilton is mentally disabled and was cared for by his father until early last year. When Frank’s health began to deteriorate, Brian moved into a Reading residential home. Paul said: “I see a lot of my father in Brian, they were really close. I hope that he can start to look up to me in the same way – I’d like to stick around to help him out.”
“I wish I had contacted my father earlier as we missed out on so much. It’s strange, there was never a family feud – we all just drifted apart. I’m focussing on the positives though – now I can start to build bridges again.”
Paul has organised for a memorial bench to be built for the garden in Brian’s residential home: “The ashes will be spread there so that he always has a place to feel close to our father. It does feel strange having family responsibilities again, but it’s kind of nice, too.”
Since the funeral, Paul has also kept in touch with his Uncle Frances and cousin Debbie: “I am thankful that Debbie managed to track me down; it just goes to show the power of the internet these days – if it wasn’t for Facebook, I may never have seen any of my family again.”
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