Never has wishing someone 'Happy New Year' had a more emotional meaning for two sisters who have found each other after almost 70 years apart.

Elaine Coomber and Jenny Hamilton are starting a new chapter in their family life just weeks after they were finally brought together by a simple birthday card.

Elaine, 69, did not even know of her younger sibling’s existence until she opened the card addressed to her mother, Glenys Lynn, by chance as she lay ill in hospital last year.

Sent by Jenny for her pending 86th birthday, it was her final attempt to be reunited with the woman who had given her up for adoption shortly after her birth.

But for Elaine, the poignant message penned inside unearthed the secret 85-year-old Glenys had kept hidden for 66 years.

Not only did Jenny speak of Glenys having a newborn great-grandson and a soon-to-be-born great-great-granddaughter, but also of her hope to meet Glenys’s other children, her siblings.

“I wish so much that my brothers and sisters could know this part of family,” she wrote.

“Life is so short and it’s passing us all by without choices.” Sadly, her words proved prophetic. Glenys, who lived in Southdowns retirement village in South Darenth, had been ill after a stroke and died before Elaine was able to find out more.

But the card inspired her to embark on a desperate quest to trace Jenny and, after KentOnline's sister paper the Gravesend Messenger exclusively revealed her story, the two women found their happy ending.

Choking back tears to describe the moment she realised her search was over, Elaine said from her home in The Grove, West Kingsdown: “I started shaking, I was crying and I couldn’t believe how real it was.

“I shouted out to my husband ‘We’ve found her, we’ve found her.’ Until it happens to you, it’s hard to describe the feeling, but I was so excited.”

Since their first meeting the sisters have been making up for lost years, and spent their first Christmas together last month.

“It was Jenny’s birthday in December and I was able to send her a ‘sister’ card, something she has never had in her life,” said Elaine.

“We have met each other’s families, we had Christmas Day together and that was very special, and we text each other nearly every day just to keep in touch when we don’t see one another.

"I shouted out to my husband 'We've found her, we've found her'. Until it happens to you, it's hard to describe the feeling, but I was so excited..." - Elaine Coomber

“I’m just so thankful for such a wonderful story being written. Without it I could not have found Jenny and I can’t thank the Messenger enough. You don’t know what you have done for us.”

Elaine had opened the card in June last year, thinking it was to wish her mum ‘Get Well Soon’.

Besides the message and Jenny’s name, Elaine had very little clues as to her whereabouts, other than the envelope which bore a Medway and Maidstone postmark, and the mention of Jenny’s daughter, Kerry-Ann, and her newborn son Logan.

Contact with the British Association for Adoption and Fostering proved fruitless, as did a search of numerous boxes containing Glenys’s belongings. That was until Elaine came across a passport-size black and white photograph of two young women. On the back was the name Kerry-Ann.

The photo and Jenny’s card both featured in the Messenger story, and her handwriting was recognised by a relative.

He was one of several people who then contacted Jenny to tell her of Elaine’s appeal, while Elaine was emailed by other readers who knew of Kerry-Ann.

Elaine then sent a private message to Kerry-Ann via social media. By the following morning Jenny had replied.

“There on my computer was a letter from Jenny saying ‘Your search is over.’ It included her telephone number so I texted her and she texted me back.

“Then I rang her and we hit it off straight away. When we met for the first time we just hugged.”

Despite leading separate lives for so many years, the women were living less than 10 miles apart, with Jenny’s home in West Malling.

They even knew some of the same people, had both been hairdressers and also shared a love of folk singing and collecting antiques. Family members had even attended the same school in Maidstone, albeit at different times.

Touchingly, Elaine also noticed that Jenny has their mother’s hands.

Jenny had, in fact, managed to trace Glenys 17 years earlier but contact was minimal in the form of birthday cards, talking via official mediators or the odd telephone call.

"I'm just so thankful for such a wonderful story being written. Without it I could not have found Jenny and I can't thank the Messenger enough. You don’t know what you have done for us..." - Elaine Coomber

Sadly, Glenys also made Jenny promise not to contact her other five children, including Elaine.

“If Mum had been at home and not in hospital I would never have opened that card and would have been none the wiser,” said Elaine.

“But to find out I had this sister who seemed to know about us when we didn’t know about her was sad.

“Jenny sent birthday cards to Mum but she must have been destroying them. After all, it’s only by chance I found this one.”

About four years ago Jenny received an abrupt message that Glenys did not want her to contact her again.

“Jenny has told me the card was the last attempt,” added Elaine, herself a great-grandmother. “Because she had just had another grandchild she thought she would plead with Mum without upsetting her.”

As well as getting to know each other, and meeting each other’s numerous children, grand-children and great-grandchildren, Elaine and Jenny have also been unravelling their past.

Glenys grew up in the Welsh mining village of Hirwaun, her maiden name being Sedgmore, and gave birth to Elaine in 1945 when she was 17.

Despite being born out of wedlock – Elaine’s biological father was already married with a child – Glenys kept her baby and continued to live with her parents.

However, when Elaine was still a toddler Glenys went to live with her sister, Olive, in Mottingham, south east London, leaving Elaine to be brought up by her grandparents.

It was here that Glenys gave birth to Jenny in December 1948. Her birth certificate, registered in nearby Bromley, bears the name Olivia June Sedgmore – Olivia in honour of Glenys’s sister and June for the month of Glenys’s birthday.

Elaine is certain her mum left home because she was pregnant with Jenny, and by the same man: “To have had a second child to the same married man meant she would have been shunned in the village.

“She went to a mother and baby home and we think she nursed Jenny for quite some time. Jenny’s adopted mum told her Mum was wailing when she had to hand her baby over.”

While in Mottingham, Glenys met John Lynn and they eventually married, had four children of their own and settled with Elaine in Chislehurst.

Elaine said Glenys could be a “distant” mother but now believes that was a tragic consequence of giving up Jenny.

Elaine said: “I think Mum would be really annoyed for uncovering her secret.

“But, at the same time, Jenny has multiple sclerosis and I’m sure if Mum could see us and that Jenny needs me she would be pleased. If anything, Mum has missed out.”