A GRANDMOTHER'S wartime dream has come true, thanks to a kind-hearted stranger.

Eighty-one years old Irene Mort longed to see the grave of her 20 year-old brother Charles Bate who was killed in action in India just weeks before the end of the Second World War.

But the Atherton woman's 58-year wait has finally come to an end, thanks to the remarkable kindness of a complete stranger -- who travelled to India and returned with photographs showing Charles' final resting place.

Mrs Mort explained: "Last year I met an Indian man on a cruise from Singapore to San Francisco. I told him about my dream and he promised if he ever went to India he would try to find where my brother was buried.

"I didn't hear anything for a year, and then last week I got a 'phone call out of the blue saying he had just got back from India and had all the information.

"Next day he travelled all the way from London to Atherton to see me. What he brought was remarkable."

The mystery man, known to Mrs Mort as Mr K C Malarker or 'Mal', had travelled from Calcutta, in India, and taken a SEVEN hour train journey to Ranchi -- where Mrs Mort's brother lies.

He then spent another four days in Ranchi trying to trace the cemetery where Charles was buried.

Mal handed Mrs Mort a series of professionally taken photographs which showed her brother's grave -- and the kind hearted Indian gave them to Mrs Mort free of charge when he visited her Newbrook Road home.

Now she can't believe the kindness shown to her.

She said: "What Mal has done is absolutely unbelievable, I just can't believe that someone would travel all that way to find where my brother was buried, and have these photographs taken.

"This is the nearest that I will ever get to seeing where my brother is buried, and now I have these beautiful photographs forever -- thanks to Mal."