"I will not give up hope." The mother of missing Portchester hiker Jeffery Moore is determined to trace her son who went missing in the Austrian Alps five months ago.

Determined Marion Moore has never given up hope of contacting the 37-year-old after a major mountain search failed to pick up any clues to his whereabouts.

Now she is more eager than ever after Mr Moore's father, William, 62, suffered a heart attack and is now

seriously ill in hospital. Mrs Moore, 58, and her youngest son Malcolm, 36, have put together an impassioned appeal for information that will be broadcast on Italian television on Friday.

Italian presenter Emmanuele Agostini has taken up their case on the Chi L'Ha Bisto programme, which means "Have You Seen Them?"

"We really need to contact Jeff especially after his father was taken ill," said Mrs Moore.

"All I want is for him to let us know he is OK. It's the not knowing that is the worst. I have always been hopeful that he is alive. As long as we don't hear anything we will assume he is alive."

Divorced Mrs Moore of Portchester is also set to send off letters with posters of Mr Moore to 100 different monasteries in Italy.

She hopes that one of the hundreds of travellers who stay at the historic institutions might recognise her son.

Mr Moore, of Webb Road, worked for a camping equipment firm in Gosport and was an experienced walker having scaled Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon many times.

He disappeared after leaving the mountain resort of Heiligenblut on August 25 and was reported missing by his partner Marilyn Burt when he failed to return to the hotel.

The resort is the closest town to the highest mountain in Austria, the Grossglockner peak, and is used as a starting point for hikes. Today his mother is clinging onto the hope that he has found his way into another country after suffering memory loss, possibly after an accident.

A Foreign Office spokesman said the British Consulate in Vienna was monitoring the situation, adding: "We are in touch with Mr Moore's family and the Austrian authorities."