Oh, Dad, what a coincidence

A MAN from Goring who finally discovered the identity of his long-lost father has found out more about him — thanks to the Standard.

Bryan Urbick, 64, was born in America as result of an affair by his birth mother, Delores Strohm, with a man called Boyd Carter so was given up for adoption.

Last month, we reported how he had finally managed to trace details about Mr Carter, who died in 2014, aged 90.

Now a former military colleague of Mr Carter has got in touch with Mr Urbick and, coincidentally, he lives just five miles away from him.

Peter Ferguson, 80, of Swanston Field, Whitchurch, was in the British Territorial Army and worked as a surveyor under Mr Carter in Saudi Arabia from 1976 to 1978.

He said: “We worked with a company called Aramco, the Arabian oil company, and were assigned to a project with Bechtel, an America engineering company.

“To extract oil from the desert we used a water injection system, taking seawater from the Ravel Gulf and injecting it into the wells. Boyd Carter was the construction manager responsible for the work when I was given
co-ordinates to set up the plant. They were drilling holes to do a geological survey.

“I had been working six months when I realised there was an error and I was worried because all the work we’d been doing was wrong.

“I went into the office and met Boyd, who was my boss, and explained to him that there must have been a big mistake.

“All I could think was ‘I’m going to lose my job’ but he came out into the desert, checked my calculations and said, ‘You’re fine’.

“They got back to the headquarters of Bechtel and found they had left a zero off one of the co-ordinates, so we were miles out. So all that work — six months’ worth — was aborted.

“Boyd Carter then became a very good friend of mine. I was so pleased I read your article and immediately knew I had to phone Bryan.

“When you don’t know your past and you don’t know your father, it’s really comforting to be told that he was a good, honest, hardworking and lovely man who would be proud of him.”

Mr Ferguson and Mr Carter, who had a 20-year age gap, bonded over their time in the services.

He said: “Both my parents were in the navy during the war and it was just fortuitous that my dad had saved Americans like Boyd. In the Second World War, Boyd was a paratrooper who parachuted in during the Normandy landings, apparently landing in a tree and losing his friends.

“They had given him a clicker and the idea was that if you were separated, you would hear the clicker. The trouble was that the Germans got hold of the clickers, so you had to be careful because if you clicked, they would come and shoot you.”

Mr Carter also attended the wedding of Mr Ferguson and his wife, Wendy, in London in 1978.

A year later, he visited Mr Ferguson at the family’s home in Kew and signed the guest book, saying: “Enjoying a lovely evening.”

Mr Ferguson said: “He had beautiful handwriting because in the old days, we didn’t have computers and you had to do everything by hand. He was perfect in the way that he could draw things.” He recalled how the American commissioned a boat made in Plymouth.

Mr Ferguson said: “I used to go down with him to the shipyard as it was being constructed. Funnily enough, he’d only had the boat a short time when another boat went into it.

“He said, ‘I need to build a new boat made from steel because it’s unsinkable’ and that’s what he did. He sold his old boat and commissioned a steel one which he had built in Holland.”

The two men lost contact in the mid-Eighties.

Mr and Mrs Ferguson met up with Mr Urbick and his civil partner, Abel Westerhof, at their home in Goring on Friday to discuss the men’s friendship.

Mr Ferguson said: “Boyd was like a father to me really and looked after me like a son. We got on and bonded really well. He was like a man of the world in many ways and had experienced all kinds of different things.

“He was also well-read and we would converse about all kinds of things.

“He was a good engineer, manager and leader but also reserved. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and he wanted everything to be as it should be, very traditional in many ways.

“But he was a solid, kind and considerate person.

“Bryan needs to know that his father was a good man because he didn’t have that confirmation and now that’s changed. I think he’s much happier as a result.”

During his long search in the USA, Mr Urbick discovered some paintings done by his father that now hang on his walls.

Mr Ferguson said: “They are absolutely beautiful. Boyd was artistic.”

Mr Urbick said that he now finally felt connected to his father.

“It all made sense,” he said. “I know he travelled and worked in the Middle East in engineering, so Peter added a lot of context.

“We talked about him being a bit of a perfectionist and possibly being on the spectrum.

“I get it as he and I are similar and a bit particular about things, which is why I became a researcher.

“I finally feel connected, which I have never felt in my family.”

Mr Urbick, who is a Goring parish councillor, was born in Seattle but brought up in the suburb of Everett from the age of five by Carol and Wallace Urbick, a strict Opus Dei Catholic couple, who also adopted a girl called Mari.

He delayed the search for his birth family until his adoptive father’s death in 1999.

In 2019, he was able to trace his birth mother’s identity through the courts in Washington State, allowing him to connect with his two half-sisters, Beverley Langley and Belinda Eastham, who live in Georgia, and half-brother, Billy Moore, who lives in Montana.

He was encouraged by his adoptive sister to complete a genetic test to trace his paternal heritage at the funeral of his adoptive mother last year.

By investigating his family tree, he was able to trace his father.

Using American biotechnology company 23 & Me and Ancestry, he was able to trace a cousin called Craig Moe, 74, who was born in Seattle in 1950 and now lives in Oregon.

The pair met up last month to help Mr Urbick uncover his paternal heritage.

Mr Urbick said he would continue his search into his father’s history.

“There’s still lots of questions,” he said. “I’m now going to dig into Bechtel as there’s got to be more to know about his time in the army.

“I’m still trying to get hold of the family who have his ashes but, even if I find out nothing more, I will be satisfied.”