This is the heart-warming moment a daughter who has been away travelling for a year poses as a Royston waitress to surprise her mum.
The scenes were filmed at the Jolly Postie pub and show the young woman, Emily Brason, don a waitress’s uniform and walk up to her mum’s table.
Emily, who had spent a year travelling through Asia, had returned to the UK and arranged the surprise reunion for her mum Tina Jarred who didn’t know her daughter was coming home.
In the footage, which has been posted to Twitter, Emily walks through the Baldock Street pub and up to her mum’s table and stands there, as though ready to take food orders.
She says: “Hi guys, can I take your orders?”
But when mum Tina, who lives in Royston, sees her beloved daughter stood in front of her, it is as if she cannot take in what’s happening and is slow to react.
After an agonisingly slow seven seconds, the penny finally drops and Tina breaks out into a massive smile and cannot stop laughing.
She jumps up and gives Emily a massive hug before jokingly berating her for her sneaky plan.
Tina can be heard saying ‘Oh my God’ as she grabs her daughter and gives her another hug.
She then lets her go for long enough to say ‘you little bugger’ before pulling her in for another big cuddle.
Emily has since revealed that her surprise return was almost foiled the day before, when her mum learnt about the map function on messaging app Snapchat – which shows where in the world you are.
Mum Tina could see that her daughter was in Sri Lanka at the time, so Emily had to switch her location sharing settings to ‘ghost mode’ to keep her return to the UK a secret.
The 44-second clip was posted to the McMullen’s Twitter feed on Friday with the caption: “What an amazing moment caught on camera at the Jolly Postie in Royston - being reunited with your family after travelling!
“Hitting us right in the feels on a Friday morning.”
May Simpson, trainee assistant manager at the McMullen’s run Jolly Postie, said: “We didn’t actually know what was going on until they got here and asked us on the night.
“Emily’s other family members who were with her had booked the table and were in on the surprise.
“She was waiting outside so her mum did not see her, but she ended up waiting for 10 minutes and was freezing cold because her mum was late!”
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