A WOMAN desperately seeking information about her long-lost father is appealing for help.

Carla Horlock, of Iford, knows father Benito used to live in Bournemouth, but all of her enquiries have led to dead ends.

She said her late mother took the secrets of Benito’s identity “to the grave” after refusing to tell her more.

“After all this time, I’m still searching,” said the mum-of-three.

“It would just mean the world if anyone could tell me more about him.”

Carla’s mother Anita Horlock, who died 10 years ago, met Benito on a bus from Lansdowne in 1964 while she was working at the Cottonwood Hotel.

He was lodging at the house of a woman called Doris in Bournemouth.

She believes that her father was from Italy, and a recent DNA test proved that she is of 73 per cent Tuscan origin.

A further DNA test has linked her to a distant cousin born in Manocalzati in Avellino who was adopted after being abandoned as a baby.

Carla now plans to travel to the country to find “closure”.

She said: “I accept that my father is probably dead now.

“He would have a family and grown-up children and I don’t know if he ever knew anything about me, but I’m going to Italy for five weeks just to feel a bit closer to him. I’m going to see if I can find anything else out while I’m there.”

Carla, who is now 47, has been searching for information since she was just 16 years old, and said her father is “like the invisible man”.

“It has affected my whole life,” she said. “I’ve been searching for so long and I’d just love to find out anything I can about him.”

If you have information about Carla’s father, email alex.winter@bournemouthecho.

co.uk