A Fakenham artist searching for details about her father has discovered the pair are linked in more ways than she could've imagined.

Artist Terri Broughton, from Fakenham, appealed for information last August from anyone who knew anything about her father, Harry Hiorns, an artist who died when she was very young.

When she was five her 33-year-old mother Pat died. Two years later she lost her father, aged just 40.

She was inspired after finding a 60-year-old newspaper story about his successful career as an artist.

Her story was shared and John Haskins, a professional artist living in Bedfordshire, reached out to Mrs Broughton. He also put her in contact with another friend of her father’s, Beauchamp Payne, who lives in Perth, Australia.

The 95-year-old artist and wood sculptor is now sending her original work by Mr Hiorns.

These two men shared stories about her father, such as his sadness after the welfare service took away Mrs Broughton and her two sisters.

“Listening to these stories was like hearing someone had died all over again,” she said.

“They told me that after we were taken from my father, he sold everything which makes a house a home.

“Plants, record players, furniture - it all went.

"He moved into the kitchen, with nothing but a bed, a cooker and an easel.

“Beauchamp and John told us that my father painted using earth colours, as these were cheap.

“But he would save up to buy red oil paint.

“What is amazing is that a lot of my paintings have red accents to them. Subconsciously, I must have always associated this colour with home and belonging.”

The international artist has been excelling, having recently displayed work in the Salon D’Automne in Paris, where her work was selected to be displayed in The National Gallery of Art in Tokyo.

She said the search for more information about her father will always continue, but these stories have helped her put some of the missing pieces together.

“I do feel some relief hearing about this,” she added.

“It has felt like putting parts of a jigsaw together, when before I did not even have the pieces for it.”