IT was just supposed to be a night's babysitting.

Jeff Fisher was 21, living with his first wife in Underwood, Newport, when a friend and colleague at Llanwern steelworks asked if he would look after his six-month-old daughter for the night.

Little did Jeff know that the decision to say yes would change his life.

His friend never returned, so kind-hearted Jeff didn't have to think twice - instead of letting her go into care, he brought up the little girl, Cerrie, as his daughter along with his own family.

Jeff never reported the situation to social services, or any other authority. He be-came her 'dad'.

Cerrie simply does not know why her father and mother, who died 16 and nine years ago respectively, abandoned her.

Now Cerrie, from St Julians, Newport, has two children of her own, Ryan, 10, and Tiegan, six.

Jeff, now 61 and retired, says: "Her father never came back that night, the next day, that week or month and I had fallen in love with the baby. She was mine and I wanted to keep her and that was 39 years ago."

Jeff then brought Cerrie up along with his daughter Trudi, 37, and Darrious, 24.

He says: "I brought her up just like my own and went through the trials and tribulations of adolescence.

"I have never regretted it at all. All my kids have been good kids and Cerrie has always been classed as my daughter.

"I have always loved her like the rest of my children and now her children, my grandchildren, are part of my life.

"They are all a big part of my life and I can't imagine her not being here."

Jeff traced Cerrie's father when she reached 18 and Cerrie and her real father met once - but he did not tell her why he had left her.

In the same year Cerrie changed her name by deed poll from Radburn - the name on her birth certificate - to the family name of Fisher.

The latest development in Cerrie's story was when the Salvation Army contacted her to say she had a sister living in Amsterdam.

The sister had been trying for a year to find out about her relatives. Cerrie hopes to fill in some of the gaps of her life by meeting her.

Cerrie says: "There are things that I want to find out more about, things like when the doctor asks your family medical history and I just don't know.

"Hopefully we will be able to meet and it will work out and it will answer some questions and will be another side to me."

Jeff says: "It is her right to know more about her family but she will always have us."

Cerrie says she is very grateful to Jeff for what he did 39 years ago.

She says: "I don't know where I would be now if it wasn't for my family.

"I could have ended up in care if it wasn't for Jeff. I changed my name to Fisher when I was 18 years old and I wouldn't have it any other way."

Cerrie, whose married name is Brain, still remembers the day when, at eight, she was told what had happened to her when she was six-months-old.

She says: "My sister said 'So where did Cerrie come from?' and I was told and I can still remember it.

"I don't know whether I quite took it all in, but it has never mattered because they are my family and I am so grateful to them."