WHILE most grandparents take their grandchildren on day trips and spoil them with gifts, Pamela Thomas, 56, misses out.

The grandmother is heartbroken because her son, who split from his first wife and their two children, has remarried and moved away.

The three children he has had with his second wife don't think of Pamela as Granny because she never sees them and it's breaking her heart.

Pamela says she was cut off from the three small children she longed to watch grow up - a situation which is not uncommon for many grandparents these days.

With divorces on the increase, families are increasingly split, which can make it difficult for a grandparent to keep in touch with grandchildren.

Now Pamela wants to set up a local grandparent support group because she believes many grandparents are in the same situation as her and long-term partner Bryan Goudman. Pamela does see her two grandchildren from the first marriage and is in contact with her son's first wife. However she says this has contributed to the fact her son has stopped her seeing her three other grandchildren.

"What is the world coming to when your own son deprives you of your grandchildren for no other reason than he has a new wife?

"This is the way of life and the society we live in and I am sure there are many grandparents in the same situation."

Pamela, who empties money from fruit machines for a living, said she has been told she interferes too much.

"To be told you will never see your grandchildren is heartless and cruel. Children should not be used as pawns," said Pamela, of Meadow Close, Farmoor, near Oxford.

The distressed grandmother, contacted the Oxford Mail as a last resort for help and said she wanted to set up a local grandparent support group for other people in the area who are suffering the same problem. "We love the grandchildren so much and just want to share a few hours of their little lives, before they are old enough to go out in the big wide world and make up their own minds who they want to be with.

"I love the children and there's a big hole in our lives.

"There is a Grandparent Support Organisation, but no support group in this area, perhaps grandparents like us should gain strength from each other and hope our offsprings come to their senses before it's too late for us.

"I feel the whole thing has got totally out of hand and I went to see them to talk to them sensibly, but they slammed the door in my face." Helen Seymour, of the Grandparent Support Organisation, said: "We support grandparents who are denied access to their grandchildren.

"We do mediation by letter and can phone to reunite the family.

"If that doesn't work and we have gone down every avenue, we say it is up to the grandparents to see if they want to go to court.

"There are a load of reasons for parents denying grandparents access to their grandchildren.

"It could be a marriage breakdown, or jealousy and children are used as a pawn."

The Grandparent Support Organisation has a success rate of between 75 and 80 per cent.

"Children can be brainwashed by parents who say 'You won't see your grandparents, you don't like them do you? added Ms Seymour.

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