Last updated at 12:30, Friday, 21 September 2012

Canadian Bob Niven returned to Maryport this week for the first time in 70 years to visit the place where he was born.

DISCOVERING HIS ROOTS: Bob Niven, from Canada, visits Maryport’s Victoria Cottage Hospital, where he was born during World War Two

Mr Niven visited the town’s Victoria Cottage Hospital and Silloth airfield where the father he never knew was stationed during the war.

Mr Niven said his mother, who was from London, met his father, a Canadian pilot, during World War Two.

The couple came to the Silloth air base where he was conceived.

Mr Niven said: “Unfortunately my dad didn’t survive the war.

“He was killed three months before I was born.”

His mother took him to Canada and he grew up in Calgary.

Mr Niven and his wife Margie have been touring the UK and he said it was a special moment to see the hospital which had formerly been no more than a line on his birth certificate.

First published at 11:50, Friday, 21 September 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk