BOASTING a staggering eight million members, the smash-hit internet website Friends Reunited has been confirmed a runaway success after emerging as one of the biggest organisations in the UK.

After only two years and two months online, the website that brings together former classmates is attracting between 15,000 and 20,000 new members every single day, eclipsing the size of the TUC and fast catching up with the AA's 12 million-strong membership.

The site has been launched in Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Spain, The Netherlands and Italy, and in August the first Friends Reunited baby was born - the result of a reunion between two sweethearts.

Not content at stopping there, the website company has created other spin-offs which follow the same format as their parent site, such as Forces Reunited, to help trace old friends in the UK military.

Last February the website branched out further to form Workplace Reunited, which offers members the chance to reunite with old work friends, using a database of over 400,000 current UK employers.

The founders of the website, 38-year-old computer programmer Steve Pankhurst and wife Julie, say they are just as surprised at their explosive success as anyone else.

"When you put it in perspective, eight to eight and a half million is about 10 or 15 per cent of the adult population," says Steve.

Dorothy Rowe, psychologist and author of Friends And Enemies, (published by Harper Collins, priced £8.99), says there are many reasons underpinning the huge following of Friends Reunited: "The first thing is our curiosity to discover how things have turned out for others, and the second is that, whatever age we are, we always compare ourselves with our peer group to gauge a sense of our true identity."

Rowe thinks that, due to the prevalent social trend for so many of us to live far from our families, friends are gradually becoming the single most important group in our lives: "When people were part of a large extended family they always had plenty of relatives to fall back on but now that most of our relationships are with friends we naturally worry about losing them. In the absence of a close-knit family, a lot of people are very keen to make new friends or to revive old friendships," she adds.

Rowe does advise using a degree of common sense: "People could remember things about you that you would rather be forgotten, or they may give you some news that could be very disturbing."

The Echo is doing its bit to put long-lost friends and family back in touch with our We'll Meet Again service.

Log on to our website at (www.thisisdorset.net/wellmeetagain), post your details and see who steps out of the past.

We have already enjoyed some notable successes including: a woman who tracked down neighbours who emigrated to Australia 30 years ago and someone who found their cousin in Canada after 63 years apart.