A Scots mum who presumed her son was dead after he went missing over a decade ago is celebrating a “Christmas miracle” after discovering that he is alive and well.
Joyce Curtis, from Glasgow, had resigned herself to the fact that son Nicholas had passed away, having last spoken with him in 2010.
However, that all changed on Monday after she received a phone call to tell her that Nicholas had been admitted to hospital in the south-west of France.
Speaking to The Herald, Mrs Curtis said she “went into shock” after receiving the call, having spent the last few years grieving his ‘loss’, so certain was she that Nicholas had passed away.
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She said: “I can’t believe it. I thought with covid and everything that has gone on, I thought he was dead. I grieved for him. When I got the call to say he was alive I just went into shock. All I did was cry all day. Then of course I phoned my mother and I phoned my brother and I phoned my daughter to tell them.
“Everyone is asking after him now. Nikky is a good boy. The feeling is that I still can’t believe it.
“I spoke to him on the phone. He looks healthy. I asked him, ‘Are you coming home Nikky?’ And he said, ‘Aye’. I can’t imagine what he’s been through. I just need to get him home.”
Having sadly lost her husband earlier this year, Mrs Curtis said that receiving the news her son was alive just days before Christmas is a "miracle".
She said: “This has just made Christmas for me, especially since my husband died back in June. My God. It’s like that film ‘Miracle on 34th Street’. It’s like a miracle. Do you know what I mean? I’d resigned myself to the fact that he had died. I really thought that. I think everybody thought the same.”
Mrs Curtis says that Nicholas, a joiner by trade, left Glasgow in the mid 2000s for the continent after losing his job.
Correspondence from Nicholas confirmed that he had been hitchhiking across France and Spain, with Mrs Curtis also of the belief that he had also spent time living rough on the streets of Paris.
Having not heard from him “for ages” after he left Scotland, Mrs Curtis made the decision to report him missing in Glasgow in 2009.
A year later, Mrs Curtis was contacted by the British Consulate in Paris to notify her that Nicholas had been admitted to hospital in France. Not long after that Mrs Curtis and her husband flew over to visit him.
That was to be the last time she saw or heard from her son for over a decade.
Mrs Curtis said: “I got a letter in 2010 to say that Nicholas was in hospital in France. He’d been missing for a while by then. I’d already reported him missing here in Glasgow the previous year after not hearing from him in ages and ages.
“Me and my husband went over to visit him and it was that good to see him. We were getting him home, but for some reason, I don’t know why, he just disappeared again.
“They were sending him home and I was told he was getting put on a flight. I was expecting him home at Glasgow at a certain time. I worked at the Southern General Hospital at the time. I was waiting on him coming home and there was no sign.
“When I was over visiting him in France I bought him some shoes and stuff like that so he could have clothes to travel home with. I was waiting in work. But he never got home. I remember it was pouring of rain that day. I phoned every airport to see if he’d gotten on a flight but nothing. We never heard anything again.
“That was the last I heard from him until Monday.”
Presuming that her son was dead after going years without hearing from him, Mrs Curtis then received the shock news that he was still alive when the British Consulate in Paris contacted her to alert her that he had been admitted to a French hospital for a second time.
Plans are now being drawn up for Nicholas to return to his native Glasgow, with Mrs Curtis keen to travel over to see him before he does so.
She said: “I’m not building my hopes up yet until I get him home. Hopefully though I might even get over to France with my daughter before then so I can see him.”
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirmed to The Herald that they are currently providing support to a British man in France and assisting his family.
A spokesperson for The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said: “We are supporting a British man in France and are providing assistance to his family. We are in contact with the local authorities.”
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