A man who went in search of his biological family fifty years after being adopted was astonished to discover he had been rubbing shoulders with them for most of his life.

Peter Byrne, 66, never met his birth mother but was stunned to find out he used to knock on her front door on a daily basis to pick up a colleague, who turned out to be his step-sister.

Chorlton-born Peter also learned that he had worked for five years alongside his older half brother Stuart at an engineering firm in Trafford.

And the amazing coincidences didn’t stop there.

Peter also discovered that his then wife had actually been working alongside his younger half sister Sylvia, 64, at the Britannia Restaurant in Urmston.

And Sylvia had even for a time been living just around the corner from Peter in Flixton.

He lived so close that Sylvia believes their mother must, at some point, have passed him in the street when visiting her.

"It really is amazing," said Peter. "It does feel like all these things were meant to happen – like fate was pushing us together over the years."

Born in Chorlton during the Second World War, Peter was put up for adoption by his mother Edith soon after his birth.

Peter, now a grandfather, went on live a happy life growing up with his adoptive parents Jack and Edith Byrne. But after turning 50 he decided to seek out his biological family.

Sadly, his birth mother Edith died in 1982.

But with help from the charity After Adoption, the three siblings were finally reunited and there was an instant connection.

"The three of us decided to meet and none of us knew what our reactions would be," said Peter.

"But we all got on really well from the start. I am sad that I never got to meet my biological mother but it is great to have this whole extended family.

"Now we all get together regularly with our wives and husbands. It’s turned out brilliantly."

Sylvia, who now lives in Cheadle Hulme, said: "It’s a bit awesome. We were never too far away from each other. He always seems to have been in close contact.

"I’m so glad he sought us out. He is the image of my mother. When we saw him for the first time I thought ‘oh my god, yes’.

"It’s wonderful he has found us and I’d like to think that maybe our mother knows we’ve found each other." Peter made his first step to finding his family when he found his original birth certificate and discovered that for the first six months of his life he had a completely different name – Raymond.

That led to hours of research on library microfilm, until they traced his mother.

He later discovered that after befriending Edith’s step daughter in the 1960s, he regularly visited her home in Sale to give his step-sister-to-be, Pat, a lift to work at AEI in Trafford on his motorbike.

He would later follow in the footsteps of older half brother Stuart, who he had worked alongside at AEI, by taking on an engineering apprenticeship with the company.

"The research took a long time as nothing was on the internet then and the place my biological mother had lived in Chorlton, Princess Street, had been renamed as Pinewood Road," Peter said.

"Eventually we traced her and my brother-in-law did some research.

"He came back and said ‘I think you have a brother and a sister’ – I was quite shocked."

Caseworkers at After Adoption then wrote to Peter’s brother Stuart asking if he knew he had a half brother and whether he would like to meet.

Stuart, who lives in Altrincham, said: "I’d only found out I had a brother two years earlier.

"I realised I had hazy memories of a baby being in the house in Chorlton when I was about three years old, but I never knew he was my brother.

"So I was absolutely delighted that he was looking for us – we had already been trying to trace him.

"I just wish we could have grown up together or met sooner."