Martin/Aldrick Heir Hunters

Heir Hunters track down families of people who died without a will.

They hand over thousands of pounds to long-lost relatives who had no idea they were due for a windfall.

Could they be knocking at your door?

On today's programme, when it comes to valuing an estate, have the Heir Hunters overestimated?

I've got a horrible niggling feeling we'll be left with a £5,000 estate having spent a whole day researching.

After inheriting money from a distant relative, one heir finds out he helped hasten the end of WWII.

You must not lose concentration.

You've got to get that message so that it can be decrypted.

Plus how you may be entitled to inherit some of the unclaimed estates held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

More than two-thirds of people in the UK don't make a will.

If the authorities can't find any obvious relatives, the money goes straight to the government.

Last year, the Treasury acquired a staggering £18 million in unclaimed estates.

That's where Heir Hunters step in.

Over 30 companies make it their job to track down heirs to this money.

They take a commission, so it can be lucrative.

Last year the company's returned over £6.5 million to next of kin.

Fraser and Fraser is one of the oldest heir hunting firms.

Based in central London, it's run by Andrew, Charles and Neil Fraser.

George R Galloway. Who's got the marriages?

Their 30-year record of uniting heirs with unexpected windfalls

has seen them assist 50,000 people to inherit over £100 million.

It's 7am and the team at Fraser's are looking through the Treasury's weekly list of unclaimed estates

-which has just been released.

-I'm just thinking that's a possibility.

As they work on commission, they try to identify which cases have value and would be worth pursuing.

-See if you can get the marriage.

-They've started preliminary searches into the case of Peter Martin.

Do you know if he ever had any brothers or sisters?

-The first port of call is to ring round the neighbours.

-Sorry to trouble you.

Even though it's early to be making cold calls, they need to get a head start on rival firms.

They often catch people at home who may reveal vital information about the deceased's property and family.

Was the family ever visited by other relatives?

-Cousins, aunts or uncles?

-But this morning the phone calls don't seem to be delivering.

There's very little we know. When he was born, when he died. And he was a bachelor.

We wanted to find a neighbour who would know something.

We are going to have to start from scratch.

Can you check that address? See if that comes up.

Senior case manager David Milchard is leading this investigation.

Known to his colleagues as Grimble, he's had almost 45 years' experience in tracking down heirs.

-That was Martin?

-Yeah. Can't get anywhere on it, really.

I took the marriage of the parents back 10 years. None in Brighton.

-You've gone back to '44 and got nothing?

-I thought that was odd.

I've got a feeling about this one. I don't know why.

-You feel there might be money in it?

-Mm.

Grimble's got a hunch about this case, which may be down to Peter Martin's Brighton address.

With property prices at a premium here, the estate could have value.

Peter Martin died in Brighton three years ago in 2006 at the age of 52.

He lived there all his life, but never married or had children.

A bit of a loner, even his neighbour Victor Dodd knew little about him.

Peter was very private. I don't know if that was his problems or what,

but he kept himself to himself and that's it. You have to accept everyone has their privacy.

He looked well kept. He kept his appearance tidy.

He was small, but round. A round face with a big red beard.

For the last years of his life, Peter lived by himself in a one-bedroom flat.

He moved in here about four or five years ago because his mother died.

He got more or less evicted from his place and they put him in this one-bedroom flat.

According to the knowledge I heard, he did buy this flat, but I couldn't be 100%.

But I think he did. He had gas central heating put in.

If he did own the property, it could be a profitable case and Grimble's optimistic.

If he owned the flat he lived in,

he's probably got, I reckon, £40,000-£50,000 in the bank, possibly.

And then a flat, I would think...

..another £100,000.

That's stretching it, I'd think.

Top notch, it's probably 150 altogether.

But whilst Grimble has high hopes, Neil's a little more cautious.

It's quite hard to tell the value because of the time since he died.

He died in 2006, three years ago.

For that reason, I'm sending Dave Hadley down. Hopefully, he can do a better inquiry face to face.

We may even work out a value on it.

Fraser's have a team of travelling Heir Hunters poised and ready to go.

Their job is to collect the vital birth, death and marriage certificates and interview people.

Thank you.

Tracking down clues takes them all across the country, with the goal of finding and signing up heirs.

In the police force for 31 years, ex-Inspector Dave Hadley is based in the south-east

and is closest to the Brighton job. He's calling at Peter Martin's home.

Hello there. I wanted to speak to somebody in flat number 39.

My name's David Hadley from Fraser and Fraser. We trace missing heirs and beneficiaries.

I've just spoken to the gentleman who lives there now. He says you've lived here for quite a while

-and might know a bit about him.

-The Heir Hunter's inquiries mean he can confirm some of the details.

It would seem that Mr Martin owned the flat at the time he was living there.

He bought it off the council. All of the neighbours knew him by his first name.

It is very difficult to find anything out about these people, but we'll do our best.

If Peter did own the property, Grimble could be right about it being a £150,000 inheritance,

but Dave's trip to Peter's neighbour has not revealed any information about his family.

That's all we can do. If we can get his birth, that'll help.

-And her death.

-She'll be born in Ireland.

-Yeah.

It seems their genealogical detective skills are to be tested

as they've now got to track the family down the hard way.

We're going to need certificates to progress any further.

Birth, death and marriage certificates are the building blocks of the all-important family tree,

helping researchers piece together each generation to find heirs.

As well as giving dates, locations and next of kin, they also provide key names such as parents,

maiden names, witnesses and informants, who are often a family member.

If the Heir Hunters are given no other clues on a case, getting the certificates is vital.

They know Peter had no brothers or sisters, hadn't been married or had any children.

So they're looking for cousins. Peter's parents were Donald Martin and Bridget Lucas.

The maternal side of the family may be in Ireland and hard to research,

so for now they're concentrating on the paternal side.

Peter's grandfather was William J Martin, but to find his aunts and uncles and then cousins

they first need to know the grandmother's name. Her name should be on Donald's birth certificate.

Dave Hadley's next step is to get a copy of this. All these records are at the Brighton Register Office.

If I remember rightly, Brighton is not a same day service.

They certainly don't do an express service.

So I think it's going to take all my powers of persuasion

to see if they'll produce certificates for us today.

Usually they'd order one or two certificates to confirm their findings

but as they have no findings, they need to see some records, including Donald Martin's birth certificate.

-I've got three death certificates...

-Right.

-I've got... two birth certificates.

-Right.

-And I've got a marriage certificate. Now we think the marriage is a registry office.

-Right, OK.

-No chance of getting them today?

-You'd have to call back a little bit later today.

-That's OK.

-We're rather busy.

-OK. Not even if I get down on my hands and knees and plead?

At this particular point, I would like to say yes, but I can't!

-All I can say to you is to leave it with us...

-Yeah.

-Come back about half past three, quarter to four, see what we have got ready for you.

-OK.

-That's the best I can say.

-Do you want money now?

-Yes, please.

The wait could cause the team problems, especially if rival firms are also on the case.

Dave Hadley may be stuck, but research director Gareth Langford is not one to be beaten.

He has an idea of where to look.

A probate or a will hopefully will say who their children are.

The will of a grandparent can be the jackpot for researchers.

It often lists all the children's names, who would be aunts and uncles to the deceased.

But to search for a will for Peter Martin's grandfather William, they need an idea of when he died.

We're trying to find William J in Brighton.

We've got a good run of Brighton directories.

If I can find his address in the '40s or '50s, then carry on going up,

when he disappears out of the directories, it may be when he died.

I think I've got him in Norfolk Street up to 1956, then he disappears.

I'm hoping he's going to die just after 1956.

It's a clever bit of lateral thinking and armed with this date

they can now start to hunt for a will.

But Neil has just discovered some worrying news about Peter's flat.

Looks like he possibly owned the house,

the problem being that the property has been sold since he passed away.

So, um...

There's got to be some authority for a house to be sold.

We have to ask on whose authority that house has been sold. And at the moment it's unclear.

So there's a lingering doubt that he would have owned the property.

Despite what Peter's neighbours said about him owning the flat, they may have got it wrong

and the estate could be worth much less than first thought.

Back in Brighton, Dave Hadley's about to find out if his charm offensive has worked.

-Hello. How did you do?

-All of them.

-Oh, that's fantastic.

-Thank you very much.

-They're all in there now.

-Excellent.

-So that's everything completed.

Fabulous. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Dave's efforts have rewarded them with the key name they were after -

Peter's grandmother was Lillian Florence Martin.

So they are looking for children with the surname of Martin and the mother's name of Martin.

Just in Brighton alone, I've got over 20 potential brothers and sisters of Donald,

but no way of working out if any of them are correct.

Their only option is to do a general search, going through all of these birth certificates,

but it's now five o'clock and the Register Office will be closing.

David? Do you reckon they'll let you do a general search in Brighton?

Not necessarily now, but... tomorrow morning if necessary.

Despite still not knowing if this case will make them any money,

they're going to take it into the following day. It seems they won't stop until they find heirs.

I think the reason David is pursuing this one is because he feels that...

there's a reasonable amount of money in the estate.

And when he gets these gut feelings, he's usually right.

But Grimble could be wrong and the case is worth very little commission if Peter didn't own his flat.

The vibes now don't feel so good!

Finding heirs to the unclaimed estates is the goal of all probate researchers,

but that's not necessarily where the story ends.

In a previous series in 2006, Hector Birchwood of Celtic Research took on the case

of Arthur Wallace Aldrick, which was worth £350,000.

He successfully tracked down the heirs to Arthur's estate.

This is... We've only done the top line.

-If this had all your cousins, we'd need to wallpaper your house.

-Right.

-And how did you find all of this out?

-Ah, well, that's our job.

-Private detective.

-That's what we do.

But the hunt to find these heirs had begun the day before when the name Arthur Aldrick appeared

on the Treasury's published list of unclaimed estates. In contrast to the big probate companies,

Celtic Research is a small family-run business with Hector and his stepfather Peter.

Hector is leading this case.

On the morning of 15th December, 2006, he began with a trip to the Family Records Centre

in Central London. He was armed with some crucial information he'd learned online.

The deceased appears to have had two siblings, two sisters - Kathleen and Millicent.

But we don't yet know what's happened to them.

We're in a bit of a rush right now. I've got a couple of minutes before the Records Office opens up,

so there's going to be a lot of competition today.

Until 2007, the Centre held all birth, death and marriage records in England and Wales

from 1837 onwards.

With all the material now online or the National Archives in Kew, it's no longer open,

but in 2006 it was where probate researchers did much of their work

and it's where Hector begins to unravel the Aldrick family tree.

Arthur Aldrick had no children. He had two sisters, Kathleen and Millicent,

but both had died and neither had had children, so there are no nieces and nephews.

But Arthur's father had many siblings.

We're developing the family. We've found a total of four uncles and aunts to the deceased.

We found one of them marrying, two children. Three of them married, and two children for one of them.

So it's developing, but it's a very rare name.

Hector makes quick progress on the paternal side,

but he needs to find all the heirs to complete his research.

On the maternal side we have no idea. We've only started to crack this. A terrible name to research.

It's very difficult to get any information that's tangible.

So I'll leave it at that, really. I've got to get on.

Luckily, he strikes gold early on with the 1901 census.

It's her! This is it! They've mistranscribed it.

It should be a P and they've mistranscribed a P as an R.

This is it.

He's keen to make sure his breakthrough isn't overheard by any other Heir Hunters.

This is the 1901 census for the grandfather of the deceased on the mother's side.

Nathaniel. Yeah, this is him. I'm sure of it.

He finds the maternal grandparents of the deceased - Nathaniel Clark, a ship's steward,

and his wife, Harriet. From that he can trace the rest of the maternal line.

Got them! Got them.

Got them. I found...Harriet and Nellie, the mother of the deceased, in the 1891 census.

It looks like she's an only child.

Hector can confirm that Arthur's mother Nellie was an only child, and there are no more heirs.

So what that means is that the £350,000 estate

will be shared amongst the 18 or so heirs that we have already found.

Lucy Wiseman is a first cousin twice removed to Arthur

and one of 20 heirs that Hector eventually tracked down.

They shared his £350,000 estate.

For Lucy, more important than the financial gain is finding out about the relative she inherited from.

Since Hector's knock at the door in 2006, she's been keen to find out more about her cousin Arthur.

Now, three years later, she's doing her own investigating.

What I'd really like to do now is some research to find out a bit more about his life.

He was born in 1920. That's all I know.

He obviously lived to a ripe old age. Between those dates, I wonder what happened.

Arthur Wallace Aldrick died on 23rd October, 2005, at the age of 85.

He spent the latter years of his life as a language teacher

but Lucy has found an intriguing war record.

I've got a letter from the MOD that says Arthur received various medals from the Second World War.

One of them is the Africa Star. Another one is the Italy Star.

I'm really intrigued to find out what Arthur's contribution was.

She's on her way to visit Ray Sexton to try to understand more about Arthur's military files.

Ray served in the Royal Army Service Corps, the same corps as Arthur.

I've brought a copy of a letter which details the medals which Arthur received.

-I wonder if you could...

-That's very interesting.

-There were five in there.

-Oh, yes.

-But I don't know what any of them mean.

The two interesting ones are the two stars - African and Italian.

These you could not be awarded unless you served in this theatre of war.

The 1945 Star was a general one.

The Defence Medal was another general one. Everybody got that.

And the War Medal, ditto. But the two most important ones are the African and Italian Star.

-And that would have meant he served in Africa and Italy as well?

-Yes, definitely.

-Right.

The British campaign in North Africa was fought over two long years

before the Allies eventually defeated the German and Italian forces in 1943.

Car load by car load, train load by train load...

What the Royal Army Service Corps did during the war was that they were responsible

for transporting all the supplies - food, ammunition. Anything that the army marches on or uses,

-the Royal Army Service Corps would be carrying.

-The men and material of the united nations...

The war could not have carried on without them, they were essential.

I have another letter here that might interest you.

Arthur was called up for military service and enlisted on 8th August, 1940.

He joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was transferred to the Intelligence Corps in 1942.

-He spent all his military service in the Y Service.

-What's that?

We do not know what the Y Service is.

The way to find that out is to apply to the Military Intelligence Museum and they will give you information,

-but I do not know what the Y Service stands for.

-OK.

It seems Lucy's cousin, Arthur, had moved into the intriguing world of wartime intelligence.

There would be perspiration running down your back, possibly mosquitoes,

but you must not lose concentration. You've got to get that station.

And she's soon to discover the remarkable role he was to play.

For every case that is solved, there are still thousands that stubbornly remain a mystery.

Currently, over 3,000 names drawn from across the country are on the unsolved case list.

Their assets will be kept for up to 30 years, in the hope that someone will remember

and come forward to claim their inheritance.

With estates valued at anything from £5,000 to millions,

the rightful heirs are out there somewhere.

Today we've got two cases Heir Hunters have failed to solve.

Could you be the key? Could you be in line for a pay out?

Lilian Violet Clark of Norwich in Norfolk passed away on 5th January, 2006.

In the search to find her heirs, all leads have gone cold.

Maybe you know something about her. Could you be a long-lost relation?

Herbert Basil Morris died in Winson Green, Birmingham, in August, 2005.

Does his name mean anything to you? Could Herbert be your long-lost uncle or cousin?

Could you be the one person entitled to his estate?

With thousands of estates lying unclaimed every year,

only new information from you could help millions of pounds reach entitled family members.

Since 2007, the values of these and every other unclaimed estate

are no longer published by the Treasury. Heir Hunters must now start investigating cases

without ever knowing for sure they will cover their costs.

It's a risky business.

Any cases coming out today, on the face of it they look like there's hardly anything in them.

You just don't know. You could have somebody that lives in a hovel

and got stacks of money in the bank.

Other people live in a lovely property, they don't own it,

they're mortgaged or bankrupt or something.

Who knows? Nobody knows until you look into these things.

But for the most part, the money inherited by relatives does come from a home being left.

The Heir Hunters come across million-pound mansions, terraced houses, tumble-down cottages

and city flats.

The Fraser and Fraser team start their second day of investigating the case of Peter Martin

in the hope that he did own the flat in Brighton where he lived.

He was described by neighbours as a bit of a recluse and they struggled to confirm if the property was his.

We've spent, in man hours and certificates, an awful lot of money at the moment.

I just hope there is some value in this case.

I've got this horrible feeling that we may not be dealing with an owned property.

It's fingers crossed, really.

If he didn't own it and his estate is worth just a few thousand, they won't get a good commission

and could even end up with a loss.

So far, they've identified Peter Martin's paternal grandparents

and at least 20 people with the surname Martin who could be aunts and uncles.

They need to work out which ones are actually related. They or their children would be Peter's heirs.

Travelling Heir Hunter Dave Hadley heads back to Brighton to pick up the trail.

-Hiya.

-Hiya. Right, what we're basically looking for

-is to see if any more children came out of that marriage.

-Right.

-They were the parents of our deceased's father.

-Yes...

So we know for sure that they were married around about 1911.

But there's the First World War so there's a chance there's going to be a gap if he went off to fight.

-Of course.

-But what I'd like is to look from 1911 to about 1935,

-to see if there were any children from that marriage.

-A general search.

-Please.

-Absolutely fine.

Would you like to come through?

A general search means going through all the registers by hand.

Dave Hadley will be looking to pick out Peter's aunts and uncles from all the other Martin births.

We only have to do this when we can't speak to people.

It is going back to old-fashioned genealogical ways, which we do, but it's expensive for us to do.

Dave's given himself a 34-year window to see if the grandparents had any other children.

OK, we've got the East Brighton section up to the yellow marker which separates it from the West.

The indexes list all the Martin births, giving a reference number, but no parents' names.

I'm just pulling out the Martins from the index.

I've got to pull all of them out, then look for the mother on it.

And so far... I've done about 80-odd

and we haven't got a positive yet, but I'm only up to 1924. There's quite a few to go yet.

After making lists of all the possible births, these are checked against the registers in the vaults

to see which ones have the correct set of parents, making them aunts and uncles to Peter Martin.

It's a laborious and time-consuming process, but it could be the only way to break the case.

As Dave ploughs on, in the office they are worrying that they have still to prove Peter had any money.

Yesterday I was rather...

optimistic in the belief that we were probably looking at an estate of about £40,000-£50,000.

I think if we touch twenty it'll probably be lucky! Ah, you never know.

I'm just getting the vibes now. They don't feel so good!

But after almost a full day trawling through the records, Dave's search IS reaping rewards

with the names of Peter's aunts and uncles. They're likely deceased, but their children would be heirs.

-Hello, mate.

-OK, it's Lillian Florence Martin. She died on 28th December, 1967.

In Brighton General Hospital.

And the informant...

Let's have a look.

It's JE Bell. B-E-L-L.

Daughter.

And the names are now coming thick and fast.

It's all happening on the Martin case. I've lost the tree. Here it is.

And we've now got...

..three stems - Joyce, Evelyn and a Cecil.

So...

Yeah, it's all go at the moment.

As well as Peter's father, Donald, William and Lillian Martin had a further five children.

Cecil, Evelyn, Reginald, Joyce and Joan.

If they got married and had children, these would be cousins to Peter and heirs to his estate.

We've got quite a lot of marriages to do now. Three on the top line.

We're doing marriages for them. Also for the Bell stem and also the Simmons stem.

So...an awful lot of marriages, basically, going on.

There could be a lot of heirs to find, which means a lot more work.

The family's getting bigger - oh, my God!

The team's relentless efforts mean that after two days they finally have an heir in their sights.

They've found the address for Ronald Simmons, the son of Peter's aunt Evelyn and Peter's cousin.

I'm hoping that I find him in. we've not been able to contact him, so it's a completely cold call.

I don't quite know what to expect.

Dave Hadley is off to break the news to Ronald who lives in the Brighton area.

-'Hello?'

-I'd like to speak to Mr...

He's hoping to sign Ronald as a potential heir and find out what he knows about the family.

-Some of the questions I'll ask you I already know, but I need you to...

-Verify.

-That's right, yeah.

'This just came out the blue. I'm completely stunned.'

I'd like to know more about the family because...

I don't really remember any of the other family, from years ago.

Everybody's lost contact and once Mum and Dad died,

I never thought of anyone else apart from my brother and sister.

That's all the family we knew we had.

Finding out about living cousins he'd never known existed has been a revelation for Ronald.

It would be interesting to find out if I've got relatives still alive.

It's going back a long time. I didn't think of having anyone else in the family.

Dave did sign him up and Ronald pointed him in the direction of his brothers and sisters

who are also potential heirs.

-Thank you very much. Thanks for seeing me at such short notice. We'll be in contact.

-All right.

That's one more bit of success. We'll get the rest of it wrapped up.

Lovely. I can have a full weekend now.

We'll just sit back and wait to see how many millions of pounds it's worth!

Although it was still unclear whether he owned his own property,

the Treasury revealed that Peter's estate was worth £30,000-£40,000 - not Grimble's hoped-for millions.

It won't make a massive commission, but getting back to basics with their skills was worthwhile.

It's not the greatest day for the firm, but it's a good day in terms of our research

and teaching people in the office, reminding them how to do the work,

which could pay dividends on a future case.

Ronald was one of potential 18 heirs sharing the estate.

For him, discovering cousins he'd never had contact with has been the most rewarding part.

Once Heir Hunters find entitled family members to estates that would have gone unclaimed,

their job is done.

But for the heirs, it can be just the start of their journey.

It's her! This is it.

When Hector Birchwood solved the case of Arthur Aldrick back in 2006,

one heir was Lucy Wiseman.

Since then, she's been intrigued by her mystery benefactor

and is now doing her own investigation. She's uncovered her war veteran relative's past.

It's nice to put the pieces together so that I can explain to my children and other members of the family

where... where this man was within the war

and what he contributed to the war efforts.

Arthur Wallace Aldrick died on 23rd October, 2005, at the age of 85.

During WWII he'd served in the army.

-Hello, you must be Lucy.

-Thank you so much for meeting me.

Veteran Ray Sexton has been helping Lucy to piece together Arthur's intriguing military record.

He joined the Royal Army Service Corps and was transferred to the Intelligence Corps in 1942.

-Oh, right.

-He was then to spend all his military service in the Y Service.

Lucy's keen to find out more about the mysterious Y Service.

The Intelligence Corps was largely made up of code interceptors, code breakers and spies.

Their work was shrouded in the utmost secrecy.

The famous HQ at Bletchley Park is now a museum.

Lucy hopes curator Peter Westcombe can shed light on Arthur's intelligence work.

Why the letter Y? You're curious about Y.

-If you put the letters WI together and pronounce them, they come out as...

-Y.

-Wireless Intercept.

-Right.

Instead of saying WI, it was shortened down to Y.

-So it became the Y Service.

-OK.

It was Wireless Intercept. That's how it all started.

How did he come to be in it? He was RASC to start off.

I suspect that at school or a first year of university he'll have done German or Italian.

In the RASC they'll have realised that and put his name forward

because there was a general search throughout the whole of the UK for speakers of foreign languages,

mostly German, Italian and Japanese.

He'd have been picked up early as a German and Italian speaker.

Intel will have said, "We want him." That's how he came here.

It is a natural accompaniment for this class in wireless telegraphy

in which the student must be so well-versed that he talks code and cipher as well as his native tongue.

Wireless Intercept - intercepting enemy messages.

You don't say to the enemy, "Can you please repeat that?"

You'd intercept a message from Rommel's army, the Afrika Korps, to headquarters in Italy, in Rome,

pleading for arms, ammunition, men and so forth.

He could either do that sort of intercept or he could be up on the battlefront.

Sitting behind the battle lines intercepting German army messages.

-A tank commander calls another tank commander. He'd be doing one of those two things.

-How interesting.

Life at the listening stations was demanding and it was a job that had major consequences.

Operators like Arthur Aldrick needed to be highly-skilled.

-Pop these on.

-Pop them on.

OK? Good. You will be told what frequency to listen to.

They know they'll be on that frequency. So you'd be told that.

You read down to the dial setting, swing this around

and just swing backwards and forwards gently and - hey, presto!

It's underneath a whole lot of other stations with a signal that big, which you've then got to read.

But you must not lose concentration. You've got to sit there and get that station.

That's all very well sitting here, as we are in Bletchley, in March.

If you're in the Western Desert, in August, it's hot and it's sticky

and there's mosquitoes around and perspiration running down your back.

And they won't stop transmitting and you're trying to write and your pencil is slippery.

But you did your six-hour watch.

The encoded enemy messages the Y Service intercepted were fed back to Bletchley HQ,

known then as Station X. This gave material for the talented code breakers such as Alan Turing

to work with. He designed the Turing Bombe, an ingenious device

which cracked the complex codes of the German Enigma machine.

The remarkable work of these Secret Service men and women is believed to have shortened WWII

by at least two years, saving thousands of lives.

I can give you positive evidence that he was here and his leisure activity was amateur dramatics.

-Really?

-Because we have a programme here when he was in a play.

-I've got the programme and his name and the dates.

-How lovely!

And what's more, we do have also a photograph of the actual set and the people in the play.

-Unfortunately, it doesn't include him.

-Pity.

-He was only the butler.

-OK!

-Two lines and that was it. Would you like to see them?

-Please.

-I'll get them.

-Thank you.

And there he is.

"By Candlelight. A Viennese comedy in three acts." And it was done on 5th November, 1945.

And there he is... Chauffeur to the Baron - Mr Arthur Aldrick.

Yes, there he is.

It's been a lot to take in, but delving into Arthur's life rewarded Lucy with remarkable findings.

It has been a fascinating journey to find out more about Arthur.

When Hector first came to see me, I had no idea who Arthur was.

And now it's been really interesting to piece together the jigsaw of his life

and discover what he did in the war and the amazing things he did with code breaking and things

and then he went on to be a teacher, which is equally commendable.

So he did a lot throughout his life for other people.

I'm really pleased that I've been on this journey and found out so much about him.

If you would like advice about building a family tree or making a will, go to bbc.co.uk

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2009

Email [email protected]