AS a Japanese exchange programme gets set to celebrate its 21st anniversary - a Bridport family has revealed links with the country dating back more than 150 years.

Bridport Young Persons Action Trust (BYPAT), which runs a Japanese exchange programme, was contacted by Caroline Stevens.

She said: "I always read with interest any article in the local press about this exchange. "Many years ago our son studied Japanese and spent a summer in Japan. We still have quite a number of his Japanese reference books and wondered if any would be of interest to the Dorset students.”

She added: "“My grandmother was born in Japan when her father Colin Alexander McVean was surveyor-in-chief of Japan in the 1870s.

"In 2012 on the 100th anniversary of his death, an International Symposium was held at Tokyo University in his honour.”

Ms Stevens' ancestor had been involved in the creation of the first lighthouses in Japan, and then the development of the railway system.

BYPAT’s partner organisation, Tokyo’s Koyamadai Educational Foundation, was interested in finding out more.

Koyamadai secretary general, Shiro Yonekura, did some research of his own.

He said: “This gentleman’s contribution was so remarkable that Emperor Meiji granted an imperial gift to him on his returning home 1877.

“We also found that his oldest daughter was married to J.H. Gubbins, C.M.G., one of the Secretaries of Her Majesty Legation in Tokyo and some children were born in Japan.”

The McVean family archives included many photographs of Japan in the 1870s, including prestigious persons, which they donated to the Japanese authorities after their own records had been destroyed because of various disasters such as earthquakes.

Mr Yonekura added: “It was so interesting to see such valuable photos taken in Japan around 1870s. We seldom have such an opportunity.

“I am surprised to know that such historic family is now in Bridport. It would be wonderful if there is a chance to meet her and her family someday.”

The meeting has been arranged for this summer, and local young people on the exchange have now been able to visit Ms Stevens and came away with armfuls of books and calligraphic artwork.

For more information about the BYPAT Japanese exchange programme, email a.c.woodgate@btinternet.com or phone 01308 423767.