A GERMAN lady is seeking a family whom she stayed with in Southend 45 years ago.

Ulrike Harnischfeger, 50, has travelled hundreds of miles from Berlin to Southend just to find this family.

She stayed in Southend in 1970 for a seven-week holiday when she was five years old and says she had an amazing time.

Miss Harnischfeger came with her primary school and was allocated a family to live with for the duration of her trip and she wishes to track down this family.

In 1970, she was living and visiting from Dortmund, in Germany and has since moved to Berlin and works as a plumber.

She has very limited information apart from the fact that the family lived in Southend and the family collected her from St John the Baptist Church, Church Road, Southend, where all the children were allocated to local families.

However, she has two photographs of the family showing the two children she spent her time with. One was named Elizabeth and aged 4 and the other was aged 3, but she cannot remember her name as she was so young at the time.

Miss Harnischfeger said: “I would love to find this family. I have such an amazing trip here when I was little.”

She has come to Southend for just a few days solely to find this family.

She added: “I have been looking everywhere and going to any place that I can remember visiting when I was here.

“I want to find them and hope someone recognises the photographs and then gets in contact with me.”

Anyone with information should contact the newsroom on 01268 469309.