A mother forced to give up her six-week-old son for adoption more than 40 years ago yesterday spoke of her "wonderful" reunion with him.

Maggie Webb was forced by her parents to have baby Andrew adopted after she became pregnant as an unmarried 19-year-old in 1963.

She was forbidden to mention the son she had lost and her parents refused to allow Andrew's father to marry her at that time.

The 60-year-old thought all trace of her baby son had been lost until, three years ago, her mother, who was on her deathbed, confessed he had tried to make contact.

Andrew had got in touch in the hope of finding his real family and she had turned him away.

Maggie said: "I was very, very hurt that that she hadn't told me before - she came to live with me and I cared for her in the 18 months before she died.

"That brought us closer together and we were talking about family one day and she told me about Andrew."

During the next three years, Maggie tried to track down her missing son, using the internet to contact other people who had searched for family members to ask advice.

"It was a long process but I never gave up hope. My niece helped me search," said Maggie.

"Every day she would come round and we would be on the internet until two or three in the morning."

Through her search, and with the help of social services, Maggie, of Hednesford, Staffordshire, discovered he was living in Burton-upon-Trent.

She contacted the local newspaper in January of this year in a last ditch effort to track down Andrew, making an emotional appeal for him to contact her. Two months later, she was reunited with him after his adoptive mother read about Maggie's desperate bid.

Social services arranged a meeting in a local pub, and, for the first time in 42 years, the pair came face-to-face.

Maggie, who has two sons William and Ivan from her marriage to Andrew's father, Ivan Hickenbottom - who she eventually married when she was 21 - and a son, Steven, aged 32, and daughter, Kerry, aged 27, with her present husband, Neil, aged 59, said: "I was thrilled that Andy contacted me and we arranged to meet.

"My son, Steven, and my niece, Barbara, came with me, and because we got to the pub first I was working myself up and was terrified that he wouldn't come.

"As soon as he walked in Steven recognised him.

"It was absolutely wonderful. When he came in we had a little cuddle and sat down talking for hours.

"We all got on really well and stayed until closing time just talking about everything. He called me mum and, although I don't feel like his mum, it felt wonderful.

"I wrote a family history for him to read and took family photos for him to look at. I had a photo taken with him and it now sits in my kitchen. It proves that I've found him at long last.

"It was a happy occasion, he's been very well brought up, a good education and in a loving family, he brought his girlfriend along with him."

She added: "Finding him has made all the heartache and hard work searching for him worthwhile.

"When my mother told me she'd had a phone call from Andrew looking for me and that she'd put the phone down on him, I was very hurt that she hadn't told me earlier."

Maggie believed her parents destroyed his birth certificate and adoption papers in the hope of wiping all memory of him away.

The only keepsake Maggie has of Andrew is a photograph of him as a baby, which she found hidden away in her mother's belongings.