NEARLY 50 years after emigrating to Australia, John Williams is catching up with old friends in Worcester, thanks to an Evening News website.

Mr Williams, back in the city this week, said he posted an appeal for information on the "Where Are They Now?" page of www.thisisworcester.co.uk and was delighted with the response.

"I received four or five replies from people who lived in the same area in the 1950s," he said.

He is planning to meet each of them to exchange memories and track down mutual friends, besides visiting relatives.

Born in Leominster, he lived in Worcester from 1949 until his family emigrated to Geelong, 45 miles south west of Melbourne, in 1956.

They were the second family to move into the Dines Green estate.

"At first we lived in Lowesmoor and I went to school in Rainbow Hill, but after we moved I went to St John's Primary School and then Christopher Whitehead. I had just turned 13 when I left," he said.

Mr Williams is the son of Frank, who worked at Meco, and Pamela, a section head at Kays.

He had two older sisters - Gillian, who worked at Worcester Porcelain, and Pamela, who married Tom Graham, of Ombersley, and emigrated to Australia in 1959.

"I now have more relations out there than here, but they still call me a Pom, even though I'm an Australian citizen," he said.

"When I first came back in 1991, it seemed just as I remembered it.

"But over the next three visits it has changed. The biggest disappointment is the Shambles, which is now so pristine, with no butchers, fishmongers or grocers."

Why don't you visit the Where Are They Now web site now - and track down some of your old pals?