24 year wait for missing brother

EACH time Barry Harmsworth sees a young man with bright red hair and freckles he stops and looks twice.

WAITING FOR ANSWERS: Barry Harmsworth's brother "Cliffy" has been missing for 24 years. Picture: Melinda Seigmeier

EACH time Barry Harmsworth sees a young man with bright red hair and freckles he stops and looks twice.

His younger brother Clifford “Cliffy” Harmsworth has been missing for 24 years and he forever holds on to the slight possibility he is still alive.

For Barry it's the little things that remind him of his brother – a man in the crowd on a televised football game moving his hands in a unique way, a red-haired boy riding a bike or hearing on the news that police have found a body.

Barry said Cliffy went missing in Rockhampton on December 2, 1986.

He said he had just returned from a holiday in New Zealand and had decided to go back to school and get his senior certificate.

He said Cliffy left their brother Jerry's house, on the corner of Berserker and Rodboro streets at 7.15pm and only had to walk a short distance to their parents' house in Mostyn Street.

He never made it there.

“It was strange because we always told mum where we were going and when we'd be home because she would stay up waiting,” Barry said.

“It was totally out of character. He had just enrolled back at Glenmore High School to do his senior years.”

Barry said to this day Cliffy's disappearance had been a total mystery.

He said he left his wallet and passport behind and had no money on him when he left his brother's house.

Barry said a few times over the years the family had received slight bits of promising information about his disappearance that all led to dead ends.

“Deep down I don't know what happened to him but I'd like to believe he is still alive,” he said.

“Our mum died in 1997 and if he'd known that he would have come home.

“He'd be 40-odd now and I wouldn't even know what he would now look like. When he went missing every redhead bloke I would stop and look at.

“The hardest thing is not knowing.”

Barry spoke out this week during National Missing Person Week not just for Cliffy but for all those families who are going through the same thing.

This year the theme of the week is “When someone goes missing a day spent waiting is a day lost”, aiming to dispel the myth that you need to wait 24 hours before reporting a loved one or friend missing.

“An average of 4700 are people reported missing each year. While the Queensland Police Service's recovery rate is 99.5%, there are approximately 260 people on the long term missing persons register (dating back to 1970),” Missing Persons Unit officer-in-charge Detective Senior Sergeant Damien Powell said.

Missing in CQ

This week is National Missing Person Week

Police still need the public to help locate these people missing from CQ:

John Herbert Farlow (1932): Last seen November 1996 in Yeppoon.

Brando Stanley Sorenson (1957): Last seen November 15, 1991 in Mackay

Clifford John Harmsworth (1964): Last seen December 2, 1986 in Rockhampton

Originally published as 24 year wait for missing brother