A FAMILY reunited after 20 painful years apart have won tickets to see top boy band Blue.

Andrea Annat's children David and Sophia were snatched from her 22 years ago by her estranged husband and taken to Pakistan.

But in 2002 they were reunited with Andrea, 41, of Glenfield Avenue, Deighton.

The family wrote to the Examiner with their heartwarming story and won 10 of the 100 tickets on offer for the concert at Huddersfield's McAlpine Stadium this Saturday.

Andrea said: "It will be great for me and all my children to go out and have great day.

"David and Sophia have never been to a concert like this so it will be very special for them - we can't wait.

"When they first came over they had never really heard pop music and Blue were one of their favourites straight away."

Andrea remarried and has another three children, Matthew, 20, Kady, 18, and Carly, 16.

Looking back, she said she was horrified when her former husband snatched David, who was three at the time, and Sophia, just 18 months. She did not see or hear from them again for the next 20 years.

"It was hell," she said. "Every day I would think about my children and where they were and what they would be like.

"Sometimes I would think are they still alive? Are they still in Pakistan? I had no way of knowing where they were or how they were.

"When my other children were born, as soon as they were old enough I told them all about Sophia and David. We would even have birthday parties for them with a cake."

Brought up without knowledge of Andrea or life in Huddersfield, both David and Sophia had no reason to suspect what had happened to them until a row with the woman they had called mum revealed the truth.

Andrea said: "When Sophia was 13 it all came out in an argument. The children thought that friends of my ex-husband, who they had lived with, were their parents.

"But then it came out. Sophia says that from that moment she wanted to find her real mum and come back here."

Then out of the blue the Salvation Army contacted Andrea to say someone they believed to be her daughter had been in touch with them.

"I flew out to Pakistan to see them. It was scary because I didn't know if we would get on. But we did and now it is like they have never been away."