A WOMAN has begun a search for her stepfather and his children, after being told by her dead mother to try and contact them.

Stephanie Edwards’ mother Terri died from leukaemia in 1986, at the age of just 43.

Mrs Edwards, 46, said “Within three weeks of becoming ill, she was dead.”

Her mother had remarried, to a man called Jim Harwood and the couple were about to move in with Mrs Edwards and her family, at their home in Okehampton Crescent, Welling.

They had sold their house in Rainham, Kent, and were starting a new life together on the Isle of Wight.

Mr Harwood, who had two children of his own, Jimmy and Joanna, moved in with Mrs Edwards for nine months until he bought a new home back in Rainham.

There he met a woman widowed in the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, who lived in the same street, they fell in love and eventually got married.

It was at this point Mrs Edwards began to lose touch with her step family.

Just weeks ago, she was talking over old times and about her mother, with a childhood friend, who suggested they go to a session with a medium at the Spiritualist Church in Upper Wickham Lane, Welling.

Mrs Edwards, who has two sons, Ron and Billy, said: “I knew that day my mum would come and talk to me. I could feel it in my bones.”

At the end of the evening, the medium said she had one last message, and it was for Mrs Edwards.

Mrs Edwards said: “The medium told me: ‘She is saying she wants you to find your family; that too many years have been wasted.’ “The medium was telling me lots of things about my mum, but she kept coming back to me finding my family.”

She added: “At the end of the evening she came over to me and said ’Please try to find your family. It is your mum’s wish’.”

Now, despite the passage of more than 20 years, Mrs Edwards, who has moved to Rotherhithe, has begun her search.

She thinks her stepfather, who would be in his late 60s, moved to Gillingham.

Her stepsister Joanna was last heard of in Rainham and had a daughter who would be aged around 20.

Jimmy Harwood, Mrs Edwards’ stepbrother, was living in Thamesmead and had at least three children including twins.

Anyone who knows of their whereabouts can call Mrs Edwards on 07954 580917.