A heartbroken father who tried to reach his long-lost daughter by posting a letter in a newsagents has been given her address after his note go viral.
Desperate Michael Hogben, 71, penned the heart-rending letter in a bid to track down his daughter Mandy, who he lost contact with after he and her mother divorced.
He placed the advert in a local shop alongside those for window cleaners and plumbers in the hope that it would reach his daughter.
One passer-by saw the moving letter in a newsagents in Sheerness, Kent, and took a snap of it on their phone.
They posted the picture on Facebook where it has now been shared over 95,000 times.
Now Mr Hogben, who has won the support of thousands of internet users touched by the note, plans to write to his daughter.
He explained how after years of trying to get in contact with her, he had resorted to the drastic method because he was desperate to reach her.
He said: 'I didn't really want it to go on Facebook, I'm not on the internet.
'I had been looking and looking, walking around the town where she lives to try and see her, and I had had enough.
'I had spent years trying to do it subtly but it wasn't getting anywhere, so I had to do something drastic.'
He wrote a letter saying: 'I am sorry Mandy, but I don't know your married name.
'I have been searching for you for so many years and there is nothing or no one going to stop me finding you, because I have loved you and missed so much every minute of every day for all these years, so much I can feel you with me of the time, like you used to be.
'I need so much to see and talk to you, as I have missed so much of your life, perhaps it will take the pain away for all these years.
'Please ring your Dad.'
Now the grandfather hopes that his daughter will want to get in contact with him, after they gradually lost contact over the course of 33 years.
Mr Hogben says he divorced his ex-wife in 1980 and moved away from the family home on the Isle of Sheppey to Gillingham, in Kent.
The former metal-sheet worker was made redundant and says he could not afford to visit his family, only beginning to get properly paid in a new role by 1985.
He believes it was this separation that sparked their long-term estrangement, and says he last saw his daughter properly in 1986.
He said: 'I think maybe she thought I didn't care, but just because we didn't see each other doesn't mean that I didn't.
'It destroys your life when when you lose your family.
'I'd built my life around my family and once that was gone I didn't know what to do.
'I felt very lonely and it was very painful.'
Mr Hogben, who now lives in Maidstone, says that although he has her address, it by no means guarantees a happy ending.
He said: 'We've got a lot of catching up to do, if she decides to.
'If she does want to have contact I wouldn't force her to do anything, I wouldn't want her to do something she was unhappy with.'
But despite his reservations, he has an online army who hope that there will be a reunion between the pair.
After being shared on the social network, the letter was then posted on Twitter where celebrities like comedienne Sarah Millican joined in the search.
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