WE all have a story to tell about ‘the one that got away’ – that great love of our life that we lost in our foolish youth.

But one for delighted man, that loss has been turned into an unexpected reunion thanks to a company hundreds of miles away which tracked down his ‘lost love’ against all the odds.

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Now, at the tender age of 81, Tom Moore finds himself once again driving a car with the cherished number plate of 9GOU – 52 years to the day after he first acquired it - and traced, tracked and nabbed for him by number plate specialists Click4Reg.

Tom, who lives in Euxton, Chorley, first had the plate on a swanky Austin Princess Vanden Plas - the top-of-the-range version of the car – which he bought on his 29th birthday in August 1963.

Lancashire Telegraph:

It was the start of a motoring love-affair that was only outshone and superseded by marriage and the starting of a family. His new domestic situation soon required a more practical vehicle and he sadly parted with the Princess – and 9GOU.

But Tom never forgot those carefree days and would wonder periodically where that significant number plate had ended up.

He recalled: “Over the years, I’ve often wondered where it might be and, amazingly and quite by chance 15 years ago, I spotted it on a Mercedes parked outside a shop in Southport.

“I wondered whether I could make the owner an offer but wasn’t sure about the legality of a deal like that.”

For a second time, Tom had to watch 9GOU drive away into obscurity.

But this year the retired mechanical engineer decided to have one last shot at getting the registration back. He started to make inquiries at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) but was soon daunted by the bewildering bureaucracy and legal labyrinths that now cover car number plates.

“I needed help,” he said, “So I put my problem into my computer as an internet search and up came these people in Hastings called Click4Reg. I spoke to them on the phone and they sorted the whole thing for me. It was astonishing!”

“To be honest, at the start I didn’t hold out a lot of hope,” he confessed. “First they had to find out who owned it, where it was and then set about actually acquiring it.”

“They kept me informed with regular updates on their progress but I still didn’t really believe it would come to anything. When I actually got the call to tell me they’d found the plate and it was mine I was astonished!”

Click4Reg Customer Service Manager Vanessa Escott said: “Mr Moore had spent half-a-century wondering and dreaming about that registration plate and he’d finally decided to have one last go at getting it back.”

She explained that, having heard the story of how Tom first acquired the plate on his birthday, the Click4Reg team set themselves the target of getting the plate back for him in time for his next birthday.

“When we talked to him we realised just how significant this mission was to him – and he’d entrusted it to us,” said Vanessa. “There was no way we were going to let him down – and we didn’t.”

Half a century of automotive technology may have changed the car Tom’s driving today – he now has a three-litre Jaguar XF - but that reunion with his beloved number plate has brought him full-circle – back to the happy days of man and machine in perfect harmony.