JAZZ singer Carol Addy is to meet her mother again - for the first time in almost 60 years.

Carol often performs Vera Lynn's wartime classic We'll Meet Again during jazz concerts across the York area with the band Some Like It Hot.

But now the song has a poignant new meaning for her after making contact with the mother she last saw when she was a baby.

Carol, 57, of Broadway, Fulford, was given up for adoption by her Norfolk mother, Sheila Wood, just after the Second World War had ended.

Her father, an American serviceman serving at an East Anglian air base, had returned to America. Sheila, whose mother had recently died and had no one to support her, was unable to cope with caring for Carol after trying for nine months.

The baby came to live in York with adoptive parents, who died when she was quite young. Carol always wanted to get in touch with her mother, but hesitated, for fear of causing upset.

Earlier this year, helped by a friend, Maureen Robinson, and the After Adoption Service, she began trying to locate Sheila.

She was facing frustration and difficulties until, by chance, she met a Norfolk woman in the caf at the Antiques Centre York, in Stonegate, where Carol is a trader.

She heard the woman's Norfolk accent, and explained her plight. The woman was able to pass her on to a genealogist friend in Norwich and Carol traced her aunt Stella - Sheila's sister.

"Stella told me my mum was alive and well and living in Australia, aged 76," she said. "I couldn't believe it when a package arrived with photographs of my new- found family. The icing on the cake was when I spoke to my mum for the first time.

"We could have talked all day. It was a very emotional moment. She said that, like me, she had always wanted to get in contact but was worried about upsetting somebody else."

Carol now plans to travel with her husband, John, to Australia in the New Year to meet her mum.

"I know I'm very lucky to have the opportunity to meet my mother again. It has been well worth waiting for.

"Whenever I sing We'll Meet Again, the experience has brought a new meaning."

Updated: 10:49 Monday, July 28, 2003