A LONG lost brother who found his Greenock family after decades and featured in a hard hitting BBC documentary is coming home to Inverclyde.

Andrew Clark, now 60, was part of the harrowing film A Family Divided, uncovering the truth behind the tragedy of the Clark siblings, who were torn apart by poverty, neglect and the care system.

Andrew, the youngest in the family, had been in the dark for years about his brothers and sisters but thanks to the tenacity of the family he never knew he had, they finally tracked him down.

Now he wants to live closer so they can make up for the ‘missing years’.

Andrew said: “Until 18 months ago I was all alone in the world and thought I had no one.

“I had stayed in Wiltshire for 14 years and before that I was in the army.

“Then I found out I had a family.”

Eighteen months since he first met his siblings, with the moment captured on camera, Andrew has now decided to move to Inverclyde.

He said: “I need to move to Greenock to get to know my brothers and my roots.

“I knew straight away that was what I had to do.”
Like every member of his family, Andrew’s story is extraordinary.

The youngest of the Clarks, he lived with his parents William and Elizabeth, who had 17 children, with six dying as infants.

The family lived in Dundee after moving from Greenock when Andrew was four years old.

After his mum died Andrew lived with his father but was cared for mostly by his older brother William junior.

He added: “I only knew about one or two of my brothers.

“My mum died when I was 10 and I needed to get out and make something of my life.

“The minute I was 18 I joined the army and I was off.

“By that time I had no-one.

“My friends in the army used to invite me to their houses for long weekends. I just made excuses and never told them anything.”

Years later he was living in the south of England and was landlord of a pub for a spell.

In the meantime his brothers had been placing adverts in local papers all across the country looking for him.

It was not until a TV production team stepped in that they struck gold and in April 2016 Andrew’s life took an unexpected turn.

He told the Tele: “Someone phoned the pub where I used to be a landlord and asked for me.

“The person behind the bar called out my name, someone put his hand up and said he knew me.

“He took the name and number of a girl called Jackie, one of the BBC researchers, and put it through my door.

“I made the call and soon I was on a train to meet my family for the first time.”

Andrew’s brothers Bernard Clark and Ian Savage have been helping him find a house in the area and settle in.

It was their late brother George who first started the mission to reunite the family but he sadly died before they were all together again.

Bernard said: “This is all because of George.

“It was George who started this and if it wasn’t for him this would never have happened.

“We are just carrying on what he started.

“I call them the missing years, stolen from us.”

Ian added: “We are really all strangers to one another so this is our way of being part of each other’s lives’”

Meanwhile the family’s search for answers continues, as there is still one brother the Clarks have yet to trace, Thomas.