René Stroobant still lives in Diksmuide, West Flanders, where the photo (right) was taken in 1945 with a couple of British squaddies on the march to Berlin. “The liberation was a fantastic time,” he told the VRT. “As a small boy I would stand on the bridge watching how the English moved inland from the coast, bringing tonnes of material with them.”

The troops were billeted in the local St Aloysius college, which also served as a hospital. Injured soldiers repaired uniforms, and one of them made a small one for the child. The photo shows Stroobant, whom they knew only as René, with Bob Bamber and another soldier, Jim Wright. The regiment went on its way, and that was the end of the story.

Until now. Bamber, 89, got to wondering what had become of the boy in the photo. He called the New Zealand TV programme Missing Links for help.

In the interim, Stroobant has made something of a name for himself, as a socialist trade union representative at the bankrupt Boelwerf shipyard on the Scheldt, and later as an alderman in Diksmuide.

The TV crew, thanks to readers of the website ediksmuide.be, found Stroobant and put him in touch with Bamber. “He’s too old to come to Belgium,” Stroobant told Het Nieuwsblad, “but I will soon have a meeting with his granddaughter, who will come to Sint-Niklaas. It seems her grandfather has a message for me.”