The Happy Pod: My best friend turned out to be my brother

**Holly Gibbs** (0:00)
This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Holly Gibbs, and in this edition, we meet Dave and Andrea.

**Dave Green** (0:13)
She made a promise to her mum when she was six that she'd find me. And I remember her mum looking over my shoulder as she was hugging me through the tears, saying, you kept your promise.

**Andrea Ramston** (0:24)
Out of anybody that I know, I would have chose you to be my brother.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:28)
They became friends at work, only to find out they are actually brother and sister. Also on this podcast, the 82-year-old woman who challenged the law to bring happy hour to her assisted living facility.

**Anita LeBrun** (0:41)
I was very happy, excited that I had a part in it. And I hope that I can motivate others, especially seniors, to stand up for something they believe in.

**Holly Gibbs** (0:51)
Plus, why walking could be the secret to the happiness of Dutch children.

**Arthur van Eeden** (0:56)
They run up and down the route, they sing songs, marching songs, scouting songs. The children are always fantastic.

**Holly Gibbs** (1:03)
And?

**Mareen Tinger** (1:04)
Next time you're walking on the beach this summer and you see a bottle, you know, don't walk past it, but pick it up, because you never know where that bottle might bring you, because in my case, it even got me to the Pope.

**Holly Gibbs** (1:20)
One of our listeners tells us about his adventures challenging policymakers on plastic pollution from his surfboard.
Dave and Andrea met by chance when they both worked in the north of England. They became friends and bonded over their similarities. Then one day, Andrea revealed that she'd been looking for her long-lost brother for 30 years, and the mystery was soon solved. The BBC's Rowan Bridge has been to meet them.

**Dave Green** (1:53)
That'll never happen. I said, what are the chances of anything like that being able to happen?

**Andrea Ramston** (1:56)
It kind of wasn't just a normal person that I chatted to in the day. There was just something there. We couldn't put our finger on it, what it was.

**Dave Green** (2:04)
People don't meet like that. It's not what happens in everyday lives, but ours are not everyday lives anymore.

**Rowan Bridge** (2:12)
Let me introduce Dave Green. He used to drive buses.

**Dave Green** (2:15)
Last time I drove a bus was 1999 I used to have a motto, it's just nice to be nice.

**Rowan Bridge** (2:20)
As a supervisor at Manchester Airport bus station, he met Andrea Ramston.

**Andrea Ramston** (2:25)
I've come to fill the vending machines and clean the vending machines.

**Rowan Bridge** (2:29)
And that's how you got introduced to Dave?

**Andrea Ramston** (2:31)
Yes, we've...

**Rowan Bridge** (2:32)
The two struck up a friendship and that's where this story begins.

**Dave Green** (2:35)
We were just two strangers and the more discussions we had, the more we realised we had in common. So I like motorbikes, she liked motorbikes, she had a bike when she was a youngster. We were having a chit chat and I remember putting my arm around her and she said, oh, she said, we're just like brother, sister, me and you, aren't we? I said, yeah, we look quite good together, don't we? So we could be brother, sister, me and you.

**Andrea Ramston** (2:53)
I'd ask him a question, he'd start talking and I had to finish his sentence for him.

**Dave Green** (2:57)
Which again was quite uncanny really.

**Rowan Bridge** (3:00)
But it was a fateful phone call in 2007 It was going to change everything.

**Dave Green** (3:05)
Me and my ex-partner, we fostered. This particular day, I was quite distraught because the foster child had to be returned into care. I called her and said, I'm really down today because the foster child's got to go back into care and I feel like I've really let him down because I'm adopted.

**Andrea Ramston** (3:22)
I was like, I can't believe you've never told me this in two years. I said, well, my brother was adopted. His name was Stuart.

**Dave Green** (3:29)
To which I replied, okay, my name was Stuart when I was adopted, Stuart Proudlove.

**Andrea Ramston** (3:34)
When I went, that was his name, Stuart Proudlove.

**Dave Green** (3:37)
She phoned me back a few minutes later and said, I've spoke to my mum and we were born in Withinshaw, a hospital on the 24th of March, 1966
I said I was. We both cried at this point because we knew what was coming.

**Andrea Ramston** (3:48)
I told me mum, I said, I think I've found Stuart for you. And she just didn't know what to say. Called Stuart back, Dave. And I said, it's got to be you, it's got to be you. And I did say to him, out of anybody that I know, I would have chose you to be my brother.