A woman whose years-long search for her dad ended in the sad discovery he had taken his own life is holding a charity night in his memory next month.

Sam Traynor, 22, said the Dumbarton event would help her ‘say goodbye’ to the dad she never got to know.

She is also raising money to help others who have lost loved ones through suicide.

Sam’s parents split up while her mum was pregnant with her so she never met her dad – Bonhill man Jon Smith – growing up and several years ago started to try and track him down.

But earlier this year she was put in contact with her dad’s family in Bonhill only to find out he had taken his own life seven years previously.

Now, Sam plans to hold a charity night in Dumbarton to remember her dad and to raise money for a charity which helps people who have been bereaved through suicide.

She said: “I wasn’t brought up knowing my dad because he and my mum split up when she was pregnant with me. I think that I only got to meet him once when I was a baby.

“My mum kept from me who my dad was and I was brought up in care from when I was nine until I was 16.

“Social work did try to get the details but mum played the card she didn’t know who he was and his name wasn’t on my birth certificate.

“I tried to look for him but because his name was so common it was hard. I just tried one last time and I got a breakthrough but it wasn’t good news.” Sam said that through messages on online buy and sell pages in the area she was put in contact with her aunt Yvonne Marsden and other family members but found out her dad was dead.

Later she was talking about the distressing discovery with her cousin, Matthew-Alexander Marsden, and they came up with the idea of holding a fundraising night.

She said: “It was because I didn’t get to go to my dad’s funeral or memorial that we came up with the idea of this so it’s my way of saying goodbye.

“It’s still not real to me because I never got to go to the funeral.

“We decided to raise the money for Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (Sobs). It’s a really good charity and it helps people that are affected by suicide.

“I want the money to go towards other families that have been affected by someone committing suicide.” Jon, who had worked as `a chef, died in 2008, aged 34. His nephew, Matthew-Alexander, said since Sam never got to go to her dad’s funeral the charity night would be ‘a kind of closure’ for her.

He is hosting the Halloween-themed night in drag as Miss Desire-Able at the Rock Bowling Club in Dumbarton next month.

Fancy dress is encourage and Sam is bringing her husband and three kids to the event and they plan to dress as superheroes.

Traditional Halloween entertainment on offer at the family-friendly event includes dooking for apples, wrap the mummy and guess the body part.

Tickets for the event on September 25 are can be ordered from Matthew-Alexander on 07698557452 and are priced £3 for kids, £5 for adults and £13 for a family of four.

For more information on Sobs visit www.uk-sobs.org.uk.