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An idyllic scene: Childhood friends, 11 or 12 years old, smiling at an Ottawa beach in the 1950s. One is holding a beach ball. The other is wearing a baseball cap.

It’s a photo that Duncan Cumming, now 72, and Ron Cole, 71, both held on to, after all these years.

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It wasn’t until last year, however, that they found out that they are biological brothers.

Friends as children at Mutchmor Public School, Cumming and Cole lost touch after Cole moved away when they were about 12 or 13 years old.

We were chums in public school for about two or three years, not knowing that we were brothers. It’s unbelievable

Cole became a cattle farmer in Saskatchewan. Cumming did security work in Ottawa, but eventually moved to his wife Shane’s native land of Guernsey, an island in the English Channel between the U.K. and France.

Having reconnected after 60 years, the two retirees are now planning a reunion in Ottawa for next month.

Both men were raised by adoptive families, but they share a birth mother. Last November, an organization called Parent Finders Ottawa put the pieces together. A co-ordinator with the organization got in touch with both men to share the news.