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The heartbroken grandparents of two children adopted by a gay couple have been told they will never see them again.
Despite looking after their five-year-old grandson and four-year-old granddaughter for three years, social workers decided they were "too old" and unsuitable to continue.
And, tragically, the children now think that their grandparents are dead.
"Social workers made up their minds that we were too old," says the grandad, who is 59. His wife is just 46 and both look much younger.
"It just breaks my heart and eats away at me every day. My own grandchildren have been wrenched away and now they think that me and their granny are dead."
The children went to live with their grandparents because their mother, a heroin addict, couldn't look after them. The boy's father is dead and the girl's father has not had any contact with her.
But social workers later insisted the children would be better off with the two gay men. "My wife and I were happy bringing the children up ourselves," says the grandfather.
"We are their family. Now we've been told we'll never see them again. How can that possibly be right? They are our flesh and blood."
The children have now been given new identities and totally removed from their former life, family and friends.
The only contact their grandparents have had with the children in the last eight months is a two-paragraph letter from their new parents giving a few scraps of news about the pair.
The case provoked a storm of criticism in February when the adoption was first revealed.
The grandparents and children cannot be identified for legal reasons so we are calling the boy Adam and his sister Katie. We are calling their grandparents Brian and Margaret.
Thanks to a well-wisher, the grandparents know where the children are living, only a few miles away in an affluent area near Edinburgh.
Whenever they are in the area the grandparents find themselves staring out of their car windows in the forlorn hope of catching a glimpse of the children.
"Even if we saw them we would never approach them or do anything that would upset them," says Brian with tears welling up in his eyes. "But we can't help hoping we might see them in the distance."
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When it became clear that the children's mum was incapable of looking after them, social workers were happy for Brian and Margaret to be granted "interim parental rights".
But problems began when the mum, addled by drink and drugs, began making threats against her parents, saying she wanted her children back.
In September 2006, Brian and Margaret reluctantly suggested to social workers that Adam and Katie should stay briefly with foster parents until their daughter stopped menacing them.
Then Brian and Margaret say they found themselves under immense scrutiny from social workers who later changed their minds about their suitability to care for the children. Brian and Margaret hired solicitors to get the children back.
Four times a court ruled in their favour, but eventually, they say, they were left unable to cope with the lawyers' bills and emotional stress.
Brian claims they were then "bullied and manipulated" into eventually agreeing to the children being adopted last year - on the basis that they would still have some contact with the children.
Then, last October, they were shocked to discover that two men were adopting Adam and Katie. And in the row that has followed all access has been cut off. Margaret says: "We honestly are not bigots. It's just the practicalities which bother me. Which dad do they call dad? "How can anyone explain to a five-and a four-year-old what on earth has happened here? It's all so sad."
The gay couple have been together for eight years. They live in a smart home and lead a well-off lifestyle. They are both in their thirties and one has given up work to look after the children, taking them to school and nursery.
Before the children moved in, they got planning permission improvements to their home to accommodate the children Knowing that Adam and Katie live so close makes the agony even worse for Brian and Margaret. "It's Adam's birthday next month," says Margaret.
"I want to give him a present like any normal granny. I just want to see the kids - even if it's only twice a year, that would be better than nothing." Brian says social workers told him that the children think he and Margaret are dead because they haven't seen them since October.
"It's not surprising that they think we're dead when they haven't seen us for so long. We've been just erased from everything.
"I can't stand the thought that these kids will think we have abandoned them."
Originally Brian and Margaret say they were told they would be still be allowed contact with the children. "We would never have consented to adoption otherwise," says Brian. "But now we've been told we will never see them."
The couple are in talks with solicitors in the hope of winning some limited access, but accept the adoption cannot now be overturned.
A sympathetic businessman is paying their legal bills, but it will be a long drawn-out process. Meanwhile, a short drive away, Brian and Margaret fear Adam and Katie are starting a new life believing that Gran and Grandad are dead.