Hugging 3Chris had spent a few years in his late teens and early twenties living in Germany, in the army barracks where he served. After his tour had ended, he moved back to the UK with his German wife to start a family. They had a beautiful baby boy called Sam and life in the UK was good for a while.

But, as sometimes happens, life changed course and Chris and his wife sadly decided to end their marriage. She moved back to Germany with their young son while Chris stayed in the UK. His ex-wife soon remarried and started a new family, and gradually it wasn’t just the distance which kept Chris apart from his son as she cut all forms of communication with him.

Years later, having never given up searching, Chris found his son again. Now a teenager, he still lived in Germany but with his girlfriend rather than his mother. Sam spoke good English but, having lived in Germany for so long, often lapsed into German without thinking. Chris still remembered bits of German but his memory of the language was vague since his army days. As an effort to show willing and an understanding for Sam´s life so far in Germany, Chris enrolled in a German language course to refresh his memory and to make quick progress so that he could speak to his son properly.

A year later, they are still catching up and getting to know each other, albeit by speaking in an amusing form of Denglish! The separation of time and distance may have been long, but the bond between father and son has been mended in no time at all.