BBC television programme The One Show has helped reunite a Wellington man with a family heirloom.

Mark Lithgow, of Highgate, now has an autograph book dating back to the First World War which belonged to his grandmother, Violet Fountain.

The book is filled with the poems, letters and paintings of wounded soldiers recovering at St Georges-in-the-East Hospital in London where Violet was working at the time.

It had fallen into the possession of Iris Simmons, who used to run a junk shop in London, about 40 years ago.

Iris, who now lives in Gambling in Taunton, was fascinated by the book, the soldiers’ creativity and humour, and could not part with it.

But last year she contacted The One Show to see if it could trace any members of Violet’s family.

Researchers discovered a Violet Fountain who was living very close to the hospital at the right time. They then tracked down her family members and found Mr Lithgow.

He and Iris met in a church near the hospital in London where Violet worked and they were filmed for the television programme.

As they talked they discovered that during the 1930s, 40s and 50s Violet lived in Parkfield Road, Taunton, a stone’s throw from where Iris lives now. They also found that and Mark’s wife Sarah taught Iris’s grandson while he was at Bishop Fox’s School in Taunton.