UNDER the assumption she had died in a car accident, John Chambers spent half of his life growing up without his mother.
But he says a quirk of fate by way of a chance meeting in Florida led to him being reunited with the mother he last saw at the age of four.
In 1966, Stephen John Chambers was the third child born to John, a Protestant from the loyalist Shankill Road, and Sara, a Catholic from the nationalist Falls Road.
Interfaith marriages, he says, were frowned upon at that time but living in a neutral area of Belfast, the family saw their Catholic and Protestant relatives regularly.
Suffering from bone disease meant that for the first four years of his life, Mr Chambers was in and out of hospital.
John Chambers, aged eight. (Source: John Chambers)"As odd as it sounds," the 50-year-old says, "that's why I didn't miss her (his mother) that much because I didn’t spend that much time with her."
Following a hostile break up with his father, which Mr Chambers says was compounded by their religious differences, his mother decided to leave Belfast taking the children with her to England.
But the siblings did not remain with their mother for long, as his father came to take the children back to Northern Ireland.
He didn't realise it at the time, but that was the last time they would hear from their mother for the next 25 years.
The family lived in the strong loyalist community of the Glencairn estate on the Shankhill Road.
"From that point on," he says, "all memories of mum were eradicated, and we weren’t allowed to talk about her."
Heavily immersed in loyalist culture, and with the area regularly patrolled by unionist paramilitaries, any indication of a relationship with a Catholic would spell problems for the person involved, with violence often erupting.
"One woman was tarred and feathered for going out with a Catholic. I thought they did that to her because she had a Catholic boyfriend, what would they do if they knew I had a Catholic mother?"
His father, who he says the children adored, died from cancer when John was nine years old.
John Chambers with his father. (Source: John Chambers)The four children, John, his two older sisters and younger brother, were separated out between aunts and uncles on the Protestant side of the family.
He says the assumption was always that both parents were dead.
"I assumed that one of my grandparents told me that she had died in a car crash and I grew up believing that and we always believed that she died," he says.
"We had a good life, we had loads of cousins and aunts and uncles," he adds, but after the death of his father he started thinking more and more about his mum.
Then, when he was a young teen, he overheard a conversation between his aunts and uncles about his mother, which made him realise she was still alive and living in England.
He embarked on a quest to find her.
"I was still quite young, about 14 or 15, I wrote to The Sun, I wrote to the Salvation Army, and a lady I worked with at a hospital put me in touch with a priest and he was trying to help me but I knew nothing about my mum.
"I didn’t know her first name or her surname," he says.
Unable to ask his father's family about her, he says it was a taboo subject as she was a Catholic, Mr Chambers says he had all but given up.
"I would walk through Belfast city centre and look at women my mum’s age and wonder, ‘Are you my mum?’ he says.
Later moving to London, it was at the age of 27 that news about a life-changing encounter reached John.
In 1993, a friend was on holiday in Florida where they bumped into a US-based Belfast couple.
The woman, Philomena from Boston, realised that John's friend was from the Shankill Road and asked if they knew the Chambers' family.
The friend confirmed they had gone to school with John and his siblings.
"That's when she turned round," he says, "and said, well I think I'm John's auntie."
The letter from John's aunt, Philomena. (Source: John Chambers)Philomena, who was from the Catholic side of the family, gave the friend a letter to pass on to John and his siblings, explaining that their mother was alive and had tried to contact them.
"It blew my mind away because for years I had been looking for this woman and I had kind of given up," he says.
"I called Philomena in Boston and she gave me mum’s contact details. I sat on it for a few days, it was just one of those things, where I didn't know how to feel about it."
John Chambers then spoke to his mother for the first time in over 23 years.
The pair arranged the meet in Preston, Lancashire, where she had been living.
"My whole life I had missed this woman, and I didn’t even know what she looked like – we didn’t even have any pictures of her, I knew nothing about her," he says.
"But immediately, the moment I saw her, I recognised her on the platform in Preston because she looked exactly like my sister."
Mr Chambers' mother said she had tried to contact them but the family wouldn’t allow her. She then decided to wait until her children were older to make their own decisions.
"Now we have a really good relationship, and we live within 10 minutes of each other," Mr Chambers who moved to his mother's adopted city of Preston 10 years ago.
John Chambers has now penned a book about his remarkable story, which he started writing 20 years ago.
The father-of-two landed a publishing deal but concern over the safety of his family who were still living in a loyalist area of Belfast meant he cancelled the deal.
"At the time, the Troubles were raging in Belfast and I had to think of my family over there so I got cold feet and pulled out of it," he says.
"Then last year I thought I’d give it another go because I’m getting older and I wanted to leave a legacy for my kids."
John Chambers is currently seeking a publisher and has uploaded the first four chapters of his book Belfast Child, which you can find here.
See More: Belfast Child, Featured, Irish, John Chambers
