Born into poverty in the 1930s, he and his baby brother are wards of the State, given up by their mother who was unable to care for them.

The boy, aged 3, is separated from his brother and taken to a foster home in Launceston where he lives until his adoption at age 6.

His foster siblings receive visitors on Sundays.

He is the only one who does not.

"There were tears but I could tell my Golly Wog about it," the boy, turned adult, says.

Across Bass Strait, some years earlier, a little girl is adopted by a Victorian family at the age of five months.

During her childhood she feels as though she does not belong.

The girl and her adoptive family are never close.

"It was nobody's fault," the girl, turned adult, says.

She does not know it, but one day she will meet this curly headed boy.

Some 80-plus years later, the dates, times and chances align, and they finally do.​

Marion Upton, 84, is a picture of health and happiness.

Stoic, with a quick and hearty laugh, she speaks with frank emotion.

Les Batchelor, 81, a gentle man, who across the spectrum of eight decades has shared his time widely.

He discovered late in life that he had a younger brother, and then, just last year, discovered that he also has a younger sister.

“There was just this question that kept on popping up later in life,” he said.

“Where are my roots?”

“So I did a family history and I had the pleasure of meeting my natural Mum, but I never met my natural father. Then just last year in November… I got a letter in the mail."

Mr Batchelor said the letter was from Penguin, on the North West Coast of Tasmania.

“It was from my sister. The one I never knew I had.”

Their fate to meet began when Marion’s birth mother made every effort to record her birth father’s name, which was an unusual practice in the 1930s.

Then, when the adoption laws in Victoria changed in 1984, Marion successfully applied to discover who her birth parents were.

She learnt they were both Tasmanians.

“I had their names for some time but felt that it wasn’t the right time,” she said.

So for 33 years she put these names away, in a place of safe-keeping, until four years ago when she decided that the time was right.

She purchased an iPad, and her foray into modern technology gave her the tools and opportunities that she needed.

It was an email connection with a history group that led Marion to her maternal family in Penguin.

Here Marion found two lovely sisters, Anne and Jenny, who embraced her into their family fold.

While her mother was no longer alive, having died years earlier at age 94, Marion had found her family roots.

A short time after this that she decided to make the move, from Melbourne to Tasmania, to live in Penguin.

“When I was getting to know my family I felt that I belonged in that place," Marion said.

"I had never had that feeling before. I just felt, this is where I belong, this is where my roots are."

It was a life that Marion had never experienced.

"My sister made it very clear to me that this was a family relationship, that I was part of the family. It was something that I had not had before," she said.

“As a nurse I had learned to give myself to people in my work… I gave myself completely and I knew how to do that, but [as for] closer emotional relationships, I had to work through that."

While the bonds with her maternal sisters are obviously dear to Marion, she continued her family search on the paternal side.

"It is important to know who both your parents are," she said.

This led her to a Tasmanian genealogist who knew of a Les Batchelor.

He told Marion that she and Les shared the same father.

“I very quickly wrote the letter after I found out this possibility," she said.

"If you are the person who I am seeking I hope only for an invitation to share my story with you,” she wrote.

"It is having a very happy ending."

Les rang Marion at 7.30 pm on the same day that he received the letter, "it is me, it is Les," he said.  

When she received the phone call Marion was thrilled.

“But I am still thrilled because I feel, I don't know, I feel an affinity with Les," she said.

"I just feel at home with him, he makes my heart sing.”

Marion found a different kind of bond with her brother than she had with her two sisters. There was an instant closeness.

“When Les and I spoke a little bit about our childhood, especially our feelings about being adopted, we compared notes. I realised that I had felt like I grew up alone when in fact I had a sibling who was going through a similar experience. And I didn’t know it," she said.

“I am very conscious of the fact that he would have understood what I went through."

The likeness between the two siblings is evident.

Similar features, similar personas, and both with a perceptible get-it-done-approach to life; a reverent authority.

Les, amongst other things, was superintendent of the Hobart City Mission from the age of 24.

Marion was a director of nursing in aged care.

She said she has been astonished by the genetic ties on both her maternal and paternal sides.

She has discovered that her chosen occupation of nursing is shared with several other family members on her maternal side, and that she and her sisters share many of the same interests.

Also, that she and her brother have strong ties to the church, both love history, both have been involved in caring for people all of their lives, and both felt that this was their vocation.

“[The ties] are very strong, it could not just happen by accident,” she said.

Les and Marion met for the first time in person earlier this year, and Marion spent four days in Hobart with Les and his wife Marge.

There are plans for Marion to host the couple in Penguin, and the three have booked a holiday for later this year on a New Zealand cruise.

They look over old photographs - of Les when he is three years old and Marion as a baby - and comment and joke together as if their years of absence from each other were merely days.

Marion is very conscious of a change within herself, and talks about old friends commenting to her that she "looks so different".

"I've got it made," she says, and tightly takes hold of her brother's arm in a girlish manner.

“I have just been so extraordinarily blessed, not only to find my family but to find people with whom I can establish bonds very quickly.  At my age most people find that their world is getting smaller, but mine is expanding all the time.”

Of the last six months, of unexpectantly and with "excitement" discovering the last of his family roots, Les says "The circle was broken but now it is complete."

Marion adds "I feel like he does".