A dog-eared letter written more than 40 years ago may just look like a bit of paper, but it means the world to Debra Spark.
It is the only thing Debra, 53, has to remember her father by - a father she never met despite his desperate attempts to contact her.
Debra discovered that her dad Ernesto, who lived in Italy, had written countless letters to her home in England over the years.
All but one was destroyed by her grandmother.
And when Debra was finally able to track her father down, with the help of ITV' s Long Lost Family, Ernesto had already passed away.
But all was not lost for Sandra - she made the incredible discovery that she has two brothers she never knew existed and, through them, is finally piecing together memories of her father that she never got chance to make herself.
Debra, who lives in Newcastle, says: “All I ever knew about my dad growing up was that he was Italian - that’s all I knew. I never asked questions. It wasn’t the done thing.
“There was a girl in my class when I was at school who would say ‘my dad is in heaven’. And I just used to say ‘well, my dad is in Italy’. But I didn’t know anything - it was all in my imagination. I was frustrated more than anything else., thinking: “Well why hasn’t he tried to find me?’
“I found it hard when I went to my friends’ houses and there was a mum and a dad. I never had that.”
Debra’s mother OIive Proud, now 83, met Ernesto when she was working as a nanny in Milan in the 1960s.
When Olive became pregnant with Debra, she suffered medical complications which meant she had to return to the north east of England to spend time in hospital.
Olive was devastated at being forced apart from Ernesto, saying: “He was really lovely. He was definitely a gentleman. I was devastated when I had to come home.
“I cried and cried and cried. I just didn’t want to leave. But it’s one of those things - we couldn’t be together.”
Olive moved in with her mum Alice after giving birth to Debra, who grew up thinking her dad didn’t want a relationship with her.
But she couldn’t have been more wrong.
It wasn’t until Debra was 18 that her grandmother made a shocking confession: for years, she had been intercepting letters from her father before anyone could see them.
At this point, Debra had never even seen a photograph of her father - and all that time he had been trying to write to her.
Debra, now a mum of five, said: “My grandmother came downstairs with a letter and gave it to me. She was quite upset. She told me my dad used to write, but she intercepted the letters before anyone could see them. She used to put anything that came that was airmail in the fire. She said: ‘I just didn’t want anybody to have you.’ I don’t know how many times he wrote - I just have the one letter. He was offering to be part of my life, and he never got the chance.”
The heart-breaking letter that she clings on to was addressed to Olive when Debra was around six years old. It reads: “Dear Olive, I’m very happy little Debra is growing nicely and that she is beautiful. Give her lots of kisses and cuddles like I would like to do always. Lots of regards to you.”
After discovering her grandmother’s terrible secret, Debra made it her mission to try and find out everything she could about her father.
She tried to track down her family online, using social media and internet searches, but kept drawing a blank.
Her husband Chris, 52, even ordered a DNA test which revealed Debra was more than 60% Italian - but they still had no luck finding any family members.
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It wasn’t until the Long Lost Family team took up the search for Ernesto that Debra finally tracked her family down - and discovered she had two younger brothers she never knew about, who both live in northern Italy.
Devastatingly, she discovered that her father had died in 2014 at the age of 74.
But all was not lost - Debra and Chris flew out to Italy when a travel window opened up last year and met her two brothers, who never knew their sister existed.
Debra said: “As soon as I landed I cried as the plane was coming in to land and I said: 'This is it. This is where my mum met my dad.'
"My brothers have been able to reveal so much about my father that I never knew."
The siblings are now planning a whole family get-together this August in Italy.
- Long Lost Family is on ITV tonight at 6pm.
