“We were looked after well… well fed, well clothed,” Peg says, although acknowledging Betty wasn’t overly fond of the clothes. “The Church people who clothed her used to give her navy dresses with white collars. Those who clothed me gave me tartan skirts,” the sprightly 76-year-old explains.

However, it is the little things that others take for granted that are missing… like baby photos. Peg has none, although she does have one photo of herself at 14. In fact, between the four reunited siblings, there was just the one baby snap, of Len, aged about two, with their mother.

When talking to Peg, I notice she doesn’t speak of ‘my mother’. Instead she always shares her, referring to ‘our mother’. She thinks ‘our mother’ had a hard life. She fears some of her siblings had a much harder life than she did.

Betty left Burnside in 1948 and went to work for a doctor in Sydney, married Ron and moved to Brewarrina.

Peg came to Yass in the late 1940s and worked for Mr and Mrs Prenter for a couple of years before the Presbyterian minister and his wife left to do missionary work overseas.

Peg stayed and started nursing at Yass Hospital. One Saturday night at a dance at Memorial Hall, she met a likely looking lad named Bill. In 2003, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Along the way they produced two children, Ian in 1954 and Vicky in 1956.

Bill worked for 42 years at Burrinjuck as a cableway driver and the children attended primary school at Burrinjuck, which at one stage had two little schools. When the construction at the dam finished, all the children at the “Lower” school transferred to “Upper” Burrinjuck. When the time came for Ian to go the High School, Peg and Bill sent him to Yanco Agricultural High School, there being no busses in to Yass from Burrinjuck. Similarly, Vicky attended St Saviour’s in Goulburn.

With time on her hands and school fees to pay, Peg returned to nursing in 1969. She did an Enrolled Nurses course, gaining a High Distinction and placing in the top 10 in the state. At first she stayed in the nurses’ home, where she was quickly told she would get no special privileges just because she was married!

She nursed until 1993, clocking up 24 years on the wards, and ‘Loved every minute of it’.

Finding her family has been the culmination of a long journey for the ex resident of Burnside. She was thrilled when the ABC rang to say they had found a brother and sister, although sad to think Len, who died shortly after the reunion, was not well.

“It was so exiting to think you’ve got family… you belong to someone,” she says.

The ABC interviewed all four separately before the reunion and again afterwards.

Before the reunion, “I didn’t know what I’d say or what I’d do. I just wanted to give them a good hug.”

“But as Ian drove the car into Len’s place, I looked to my right and said ‘look at poor Lennie’ and started crying.”

Len was in a wheelchair, with June behind him.

“I started walking, then I was running and threw myself into June’s arms. It was such a wonderful, wonderful time. I bonded with them straight away.

“I was just so thrilled to think I had a family. It was sad because we didn’t get much time with Len, but I felt he was waiting for us.

“It’s a pity we didn’t meet them years ago, but never mind. We’ve met them and given them our love and kisses.”

The siblings found their paths had crossed during their lives, unbeknown to any of them. Len had been to Burrinjuck fishing and to Tamworth, where Ian and Helen live, for the country music festival. Peg has also found her mother’s sisters, and has a whole new array of nieces and nephews she never knew existed.

“The world’s just opened up for me. It’s fantastic. I can’t believe it.”

Peg has bought a printer and is now kept busy printing off photos and keeping in touch with her new-found family. June and Roy are having their 60th wedding anniversary in Melbourne in January and the Yass side of the family has already booked in.

The Dowling family home is fairly bubbling with excitement. Peg is full of gratitude to Ian. “If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have got where we did.”

“It’s great,” says Bill and laughs. “Every time I walk through the door she’s on the phone.”

Peg Dowling is busy catching up on the 70 years she missed with her family.