Cashmore/Maynard Heir Hunters

Every year in the UK, 12,000 people die with no will

and no obvious relatives.

Tracking down their long-lost families is a job for the Heir Hunters.

Could they be knocking at your door?

On today's programme:

with the competition hot on their heels,

the heir hunters are involved in a nail-biting chase.

I don't know. I don't know who that is.

And the search for beneficiaries of a £250,000 estate

reveals a dark family history.

It didn't actually say that she was a prostitute,

but from what they said and what was subsequently found out,

that's what she was.

And we'll have details of some of the hundreds of estates

still waiting to be claimed.

Could you be in line for a windfall?

Approximately two-thirds of people in the UK

don't have a current will.

If they die without making one,

their money could end up going to the government.

Last year alone, the Treasury made a staggering £18 million

from unclaimed estates. That's where the heir hunters step in.

More than 30 companies make it their job to trace the long-lost relatives.

As they charge a commission, it's a rewarding business.

Last year between them they returned £6 million to the rightful heirs.

It's 7.00am Thursday and this week's Treasury list of unclaimed estates has just been released.

It's a frantic time in the office of Fraser and Fraser.

With over 30 rival firms also poring over the same list at the same time,

they need to work quickly.

Despite their efforts, Charles Fraser and his team aren't progressing very fast.

None of you have got anything here.

It's a bit of a dog's dinner.

We've got a lot of cases this morning

where a lot of the deceased appear to be living in nursing homes

so we've got to wait until the nursing home opens, really.

Then we can call them and ask for information about the person who's died.

The Treasury's list doesn't give the value of an estate.

So when there's only a nursing home as an address,

it's difficult to decide which are going to be the most lucrative cases to follow.

But what they do know is that every case on the list

has to be worth at least £5,000.

And that money will end up in the government coffers if heirs aren't found.

Let's try and allocate some of these to you all.

One of Fraser and Fraser's longest-serving case managers, David Pacifico,

is assigned the estate of George Thomas Cashmore.

Like many of the cases advertised today, George died in a nursing home.

He was 81 years old, had no known family,

and a history of mental illness.

When George first came to the home, we didn't know much about him.

We were aware from his doctor

that he had a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Then he went on to be diagnosed with dementia.

But George had obviously got a lifetime of experience

that he'd got locked within him.

George fought in Germany during the Second World War.

Although no longer able to talk about his past,

Jean noticed how he would react to certain songs.

When they were singing the Vera Lynn songs and things like that,

they'd got their flags and they were all...

George actually took part in that.

So although he couldn't tell us what the feelings were,

we could see that he was having such a memorable time.

George suffered from psychological problems,

but no-one knew what caused them or how long he'd suffered.

As he died without leaving a will,

the team start investigating his case.

They uncover an address he lived at before the nursing home.

If he owned the property, the value of the estate could be higher than they first thought.

Needing to check this out straight away, company partner Charles

calls up one of his team who's based in Birmingham.

So, Waverley Road. It's Cashmore, yeah.

Probate research doesn't just happen in the office.

Up and down the country, there are a number of travelling heir hunters

employed by the company.

They pick up records, talk to neighbours about the deceased

and make door-to-door enquiries.

But their key role is signing up heirs before the competition.

Ex-police officer Paul Matthews has been handling cases around his home in Birmingham

for the past eight years. Eager to establish if the estate is worth anything,

Paul wants to find out if George Cashmore owned a property.

The office have come up with an address in Small Heath.

We're not sure whether he owned the property or rented it.

The first thing to do is put a value on the estate

to see if it's viable and worth doing.

Just because somebody dies in squalid conditions or a care home

or with no outward signs of wealth

it doesn't mean they haven't been a hard saver all their life

or haven't inherited off somebody.

With Paul heading off in search of clues,

the office are starting to draw up a family tree

and already they've found some vital information.

By cross-referencing George's birth certificate with the census and electoral rolls,

they have their first breakthrough in this case.

Could they have already uncovered some of George's heirs?

George was the son of Thomas Cashmore and Clara Hawkins,

who had an older sister, Rose.

Rose died in 2008

but had five children.

They would be George's nieces and nephews

and could all be entitled to a share of the estate.

Using the electoral roll,

case manager David Pacifico has already found a phone number for one of the potential heirs.

So I'm just gonna phone up what I hope might be a nephew

and if it's correct, try and get an appointment for Paul Matthews to go and see him.

With David following up leads in the office,

out on the road, Paul's arrived at George's old street.

KNOCKS DOOR

..George Cashmore, an old bloke.

No?

OK. Cheers. Thank you.

Back in the office, things are moving fast.

It's only 9.00am, but David has already managed to speak to an heir,

George's nephew, Brian.

It's come to our attention your uncle's passed away,

it would seem without leaving a valid will

and, it was thought, without any known next-of-kin.

He discovers that George's mental illness only occurred after the Second World War.

So could it have been caused by his experiences on the front line?

One person who has a wealth of knowledge on this subject

is Terry Charman, senior historian at the Imperial War Museum.

It wasn't just the scenes of combat, of losing your comrades,

seeing civilians massacred

and the results of artillery fire, that type of thing,

but also the deliberate atrocities committed by the Nazis in the concentration camps.

I think that many of the troops that eye-witnessed, for example, the liberation of Belsen

and the horrific scenes there

suffered terribly from this in post-war years.

Over 5.5 million troops fought in the Second World War.

Nearly 300,000 lost their lives

and those servicemen returning home had to deal with what they had witnessed.

You'd have to have been a very hard and tough personality

not to have been affected by the sight of your comrades being killed, wounded in action,

or to view the other sights like the atrocities of the concentration camps.

I think a lot of people, perhaps even now,

are suffering from the emotional problems of things that they experienced

during the Second World War.

It's come back to haunt them, perhaps, in old age.

So could this be the answer behind George Cashmore's late onset of schizophrenia?

Were his experiences enough to trigger his mental illness?

Having already traced one of George's heirs,

it seems like it's going to be a straightforward case.

But nothing is ever that easy.

Another heir-hunting company is hot on their heels.

I've just spoken to the nephew.

I want to get Paul Matthews to contact him direct straightaway.

But Paul is still busy trying to discover if anyone remembers the deceased.

-Was that George?

-I never knew George.

-DIALLING TONE

-All David can do is keep calling.

Not doing too well at the moment, I'm afraid.

Other companies are on to this

and I need him urgently to go round and see somebody who I think is at home now.

Worried that the competition will beat them to it,

David goes to see Charles.

INAUDIBLE

Paul Matthews, is he doing anything else?

He's not answering his phone. There's other companies on to it.

The wife gave me his mobile

and I'm wanting Paul to see him literally as soon as possible.

I can't do any more until he phones in.

-We've put an All Persons Bulletin out.

-I know.

At last, Paul is back in the car.

His enquiries have discovered that George only rented at the property.

He calls into the office to update them.

You must have dozens of messages there, or missed calls.

It might not seem like much time has passed,

but when they are racing to sign up heirs ahead of the competition,

every second counts.

'A few minutes ago I spoke to the nephew and I said you'd phone him direct on his mobile.

'I'm hoping you can see him at work.'

With competition hotting up,

will they reach the heirs in time?

And will Paul be able to unlock the mystery of George's mental health?

'He used to come and visit when I was a teenager, to the house.'

But she dreaded him coming because of his mental disability.

Piecing together separated families is the daily work of the heir hunters.

But few cases involve nobility.

So when the name of a lord appeared on the Treasury's list of unclaimed estates,

there was excitement in the office.

But it's not just the thrill of working on a case involving blue blood.

It was a lord leaving a fortune of a quarter of a million pounds.

This really was a rare treasure for Fraser and Fraser.

When we first saw this case advertised as Lord Ravencastle,

my first thought was, "Brilliant. We're gonna work a lord."

That would be fabulous. Great fun.

Lord Ravenscastle wasn't the only noble name the deceased went by.

At some stage in the past he'd adopted Raymond Ravenscastle, or Count Ravenscastle,

as he liked to call himself.

He said he had all the paperwork

to support that, but I never questioned it, you know.

I thought I'd let him have his fantasy!

Half the office were arguing it'd be a titled individual,

and half were saying, "No chance, it's all made up."

I didn't really go with him being titled.

I went for it being an ordinary folk.

I never like it when Grimble's right, but I was a bit disappointed.

It would have been so nice to say, "We've done the family of Lord Ravencastle",

but it's not the way it goes sometimes.

It turned out that he had just appointed himself the title of lord

and his name was merely Raymond Ravenscastle.

Either way, the fact still remained that he'd died without leaving a will

and the lordly sum of a quarter of a million pounds

would go to the Treasury unless his rightful heirs were found.

Raymond Ravenscastle died alone aged 70 at his home in Oxford.

A colourful character, he was well known in the local community.

Anybody who lived in Boars Hill

eventually got to see and hear about and to know Ray.

The pedestrians would be open-jawed in amazement when he went by.

He looked like Yul Brynner in a black tracksuit.

I think he used to play up to it.

But there was more to Raymond than his unconventional appearance.

An event was organised at a house on Boars Hill where there is a superb grand piano.

It was all organised, then a few days beforehand, Ray said,

"I'm going to play a tribute. I've composed a tribute."

So, with heart in mouth, we let him play after the interval.

And I'm not a musical person so I can't criticise or comment, really,

but I thought it was brilliant.

PLAYS FLAMBOYANTLY AND WITH SKILL

It was just like you'd hear a grand pianist in a concert playing.

Fantastic, yeah. Self-taught, too.

Despite being well known in the neighbourhood,

Raymond died alone and his body was left undiscovered for weeks.

We all feel guilty

that we didn't know he'd died until a long time afterwards

and he may well have been dead for weeks before he was discovered.

Nobody knew because he didn't mix with anybody by then

and so nobody had any particular reason to go and check up on him.

So why did this charismatic and flamboyant character

die without any family around him?

And who was entitled to the £250,000 fortune he left behind?

Was someone who didn't even know about Raymond Ravenscastle's existence

in line for a life-changing windfall?

His friends knew nothing about his family.

He always created the impression that there was nobody at all.

He had no mother and father that he could recall,

he had no brothers and sisters, had never been married,

didn't have a relationship with anybody.

So who was this elusive character?

One of the company's longest-serving case managers, David Milchard,

known in the office as Grimble, takes up the challenge to find out.

For heir hunters, the death certificate is their first tool in tracking down heirs.

As well as the date of death, it normally gives a date of birth.

Using this information, probate researchers can trawl the archives

and find corresponding records.

The birth certificate gives them a place of birth and the names of parents.

So a family tree can begin to take shape.

Grimble's research discovers that our "lord", far from being an aristocrat,

was born simply Raymond Torrence, and was the son of Robina Torrence.

Once we knew of the birth in the name of Torrence,

when we got the certificate,

it showed that there was no father.

There was the mother's name,

so we thought immediately that this is an illegitimate birth.

With no father to investigate,

Grimble turns his attention to the maternal side of the tree.

Raymond's mother was Robina Torrence,

the daughter of James Torrence and Agnes Dickson.

She was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1913

and was the second youngest of their eight children.

Grimble discovers that all of Robina's siblings have died

so it was their children, Raymond's cousins,

who were the potential heirs to his £250,000 estate.

One heir was Elsie Powers.

Her grandmother, Isabella, was Raymond's aunt.

Elsie had never even heard of Raymond.

So when an heir hunter knocked on her door,

and told her that she could be entitled to a share of his fortune,

neither her nor her husband, Fred, could quite believe it.

I thought it was a joke. I told her it was a joke. I said, "There's somebody at it!"

When I heard the name Raymond Maynard, I thought they'd got the wrong person.

Would nae be looking for me because I'd never heard that name before.

I think she was only 18 there.

I knew it must be something to do with my mother

because I never knew that side of the family.

And the mystery surrounding that side of the family was getting more interesting.

With no father on the birth certificate,

the team have no choice but to look for heirs on the maternal side of the family only.

Until they uncover a very unusual twist in the tale.

Raymond had a second birth certificate,

registered 15 years after his first.

This time, the father's name is entered. Raymond Maynard.

Now, this certificate is signed by both the mother and the father.

Which indicates that the couple were not married at the time.

So who was the man now claiming to be Raymond's father?

In an attempt to find out more,

Grimble calls Robina's family.

Robina, the mother, according to the family, she basically left Scotland.

Robina had fallen out with her family and moved to the bright lights of London,

perhaps in search of a more fruitful or glamorous life.

There is a popular historical image of Britain and Londoners in particular

loosening moral restraint

and having a good time and a good sexual time

as a result of the war.

And Grimble finds out more intriguing information about Robina.

They intimated, according to the life she was involved in,

although they didn't actually say she was a prostitute,

certainly from what they said and what was subsequently found out, that's what she was.

The sex trade in London and in areas like this,

in Soho, was complexly organised,

nasty, brutish,

particularly for women, and it was a thriving big business.

But the story was about to get even more mysterious.

The heir hunters had already found some potential heirs to Raymond's £250,000 estate.

But family-held secrets would take them deep into the criminal underworld.

We've dealt with families that have been on the edge of crime and things,

but to be heavily involved in the Mafia,

a Sicilian family,

if there had been a lot of family still around,

I think I would have volunteered one of the others to go and sign him!

For every case that is solved,

there are still thousands that remain a mystery.

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

Their assets will be kept for up to 30 years

in the hope that eventually, someone will remember

and come forward to claim their inheritance.

With estates valued at anything from 5,000 to millions of pounds,

the rightful heirs are out there somewhere.

Today, we've got two cases heir hunters have so far failed to solve.

Could you be the key?

Could you be in line for a pay-out?

Joyce Mary Kilner died in Urmston in Manchester

on 30 December 2004.

Was Joyce a friend or neighbour of yours?

Could you even be related to her

and entitled to her legacy?

Hetty Florence May Liebek passed away on 25 September 2006

in Worthing.

So far, every attempt to find her rightful heir has failed.

If no relatives can be found, her money will go to the government.

But could it be meant for you?

Fraser and Fraser are investigating the case of George Cashmore.

Why did he die alone in a nursing home with no family around him?

And what caused his mental health problems?

Hoping to unlock the mystery, senior case manager David Pacifico

has begun tracing his heirs and finds a nephew.

One of the children is called Brian Gillen.

But with other probate research companies also working on the case,

it's vital for travelling heir hunter Paul Matthews to make contact with him first.

DIALLING TONE

-'Hello?'

-Hello. Mr Gillen?

-'Yes.'

-Paul Matthews from Fraser and Fraser.

Paul Matthews wastes no time heading over to see him.

Worried other heir hunters may be trying to contact him at work,

Paul arranges to meet Brian outside.

And it's here he starts to piece together the details of George's troubled past.

-Your Uncle George, you don't know when he was born.

-No.

Do you know anything about him? He was a bachelor. Where did he live?

He lived in Windmill Lane, Smethwick, in a flat.

What was your memories of George?

He suffered with schizophrenic.

Something happened while he was in the army, with a girl.

-He never forgot it.

-Oh, right.

-I think it sent his mind funny ways.

-Was he all right before that?

-Perfect, yeah.

-Was he?

-Perfect, yes.

Has George's nephew unlocked the mystery of his mental health?

Could a war-time relationship really be responsible?

'In some cases,'

fraternisation with German girls was frowned upon

and looked down upon by some of the British troops

who thought, having seen all the horrors of the camps and this type of thing

and having endured a lot of hard fighting against the Germans in north-west Europe,

nearly a year between D-Day and VE Day.

And in some cases there was the feeling

that German women and girls, by getting a British or an American boyfriend,

was somehow cosseting them from the rest of the population.

And indeed, perhaps providing them with protection as well.

Armed with his new information, Paul calls David.

But he has news of his own.

He spoke about his Uncle Norman, did he, to you?

He said he died during the war. Didn't know much about him.

For your information, he was born as Norman Harold Hawkins,

which was before the parents' marriage.

David Pacifico discovered that George's mother, Clara,

gave birth to a son, Norman Hawkins,

before she married George's father.

The team need to discover if he was adopted by George's father.

If he was, his descendants would be heirs.

They learn that Norman was a member of the British Royal Artillery

and had served in the Second World War.

In 1943, his family were sent a letter by the Red Cross

informing them that he was missing, presumed dead.

Further digging reveals that Norman's name

is on a list of those killed in the Ballale Massacre in March 1943.

Mary Baker's late husband, Alf,

was also part of the regiment and documented the history of the tragedy

and named those who lost their lives.

And in the list is Hawkins N H,

Gunner, ninth coast, aged 23,

as one of the 517 that were lost at Ballale.

George's brother, Norman Hawkins,

was one of 600 members of the British Royal Artillery

who were captured by the Japanese in 1942.

Originally held in the Changi prisoner-of-war camp,

they were then transported to Rabaul on the island of New Britain

in Papua New Guinea.

From there, 517 of the men were taken to Ballale in the Solomon Islands

where they were forced by the Japanese to build an airstrip.

Mary's husband, Alf, was left behind in Rabaul

so lived to tell the heart-breaking story of what happened next.

Once the job was done, we believe that, if they hadn't been killed by bombing,

they were executed.

The office's research confirmed that George's older brother, Norman,

was killed by the Japanese on the island.

As he died without having any children,

whether he was adopted by George's father or not,

the only heirs to George's estate

are now his half-sister Rose's five children.

The search for them is coming together well.

It's only 11.30 in the morning and Paul has managed to sign up one of them, nephew Brian.

So we're doing very well today.

Let's hope we get lucky and it's an estate that's worthwhile researching.

So, yeah, the day's good so far.

But Brian is only entitled to one-fifth of the estate.

For the case to be worthwhile for the team,

they need to try to sign up all five of the heirs.

With the race still on for him to reach the others ahead of the competition,

he dashes over to the house of Patricia, one of George's nieces.

Fraser and Fraser. Pleased to meet you.

And he is only just in time as there is a rival heir hunter at the door.

I don't know who that is.

With his competitor outside on the doorstep,

Patricia decides to sign up with Paul.

If you sign there...

When you're working these estates, time is very, very important.

If you end up ten minutes further behind than where you should be,

then he'd have been sitting in there seeing the heir while I'm at the door.

It may be lunchtime, but there's no time for Paul to stop.

He heads over to the office of Michael,

another one of George's nephews.

Like his brother, Brian, Michael remembers his troubled uncle.

He used to come and visit when I was a teenager, to the house.

He had this obsession for washing.

He was always washing. He'd leave the taps running and I'd see the water coming out the bathroom.

Psychological problems manifested themselves in George's day-to-day life.

This odd and unpredictable behaviour

may help to explain why his family had lost touch with him.

It's over 40 years since the last time I saw him.

So it is rather weird to get that phone call this morning,

to find out he passed away.

It was also weird cos my mother passed away last year as well.

So it's uncanny that they both passed away the same year.

George's nephew, Michael, agrees to sign with Fraser and Fraser.

It's not even three o'clock and Paul has already achieved a hat trick.

A good interview with the gentleman.

He's happy for us to put forward his claim.

So we've seen three people, we've signed all three.

So it's Frasers three, the competition nil, which is good.

Back in the office, David checks in with Paul.

Hello, Paul.

-I've seen Mr Gillen at work, Michael.

-'Yeah.'

No problem. He's quite happy for us to put forward his claim.

I've got a sporting chance. I'll try Janice later.

-Catch up with you later or tomorrow.

-Okey-cokey, Dave.

Paul has just two more heirs to the Cashmore estate to sign up.

As George's niece, Janice, works as a schoolteacher, Paul has to hang around until she gets home.

And his wait is worth it.

Not only does he get Janice's signature,

he finds out more about George's troubled past.

Paul Matthews, Fraser and Fraser. Pleased to meet you.

He went into the army during the war.

He was sent to Germany.

He, um...

fell in love with a German woman.

And, um, on the boat back...

because he'd fallen in love, he had such a severe beating

that it caused his mental illness.

He was severely beaten and he was tortured

by his comrades.

It caused him to be schizophrenic.

George's colleagues viewed him as a traitor

and couldn't forgive him for his relationship with a German girl.

There was a feeling that these people had been responsible

for bringing to the world so much death and destruction and misery.

"How can we ever actually forgive them?"

So Janice's final piece in the jigsaw

helps the office unlock the mystery of George's mental health.

The team's had a successful day - they've already signed four out of the five heirs.

We're pleased at the outcome of this case,

that we've been able to identify the next-of-kin and tell them

the uncle had passed away

and put a closure to that because maybe they were wondering what happened to him, things like that.

'The good that's come out of the news today'

is the knowledge for us that now they're all reconciled.

They're all together again.

Nobody is suffering any more

and they'll all know the answers to these questions they've pondered on for so many years.

Fraser and Fraser have already invested a good deal of time and resources

on the case of Raymond Maynard, the self-appointed lord and local eccentric

who died in Oxford in February 2009 without leaving a will.

His estate is worth a massive quarter of a million pounds,

a life-changing sum

which would end up in the Treasury coffers if the rightful heirs aren't found.

As heir hunters work on commission, they have a huge incentive to track them down.

They found heirs on Raymond's mother's side

but who was his father? And why did he wait 15 years before he put his name on Raymond's birth certificate?

Grimble had discovered that Raymond's mother, Robina, was involved in the sex industry.

Nobody actually came out with "She was a prostitute", but from what we found out,

it's obvious she was heavily involved.

Police documents held at the National Archive

show Robina had 32 convictions for working the streets.

The documents also revealed that she was involved with one of the most notorious crime dynasties

ever to plague London's streets,

the Messinas.

Five Mediterranean brothers who'd built up a multi-million-pound empire of vice in London.

The Messinas come to London in the late 1930s

and they intervene in the trade in a number of ways

by increasing the amount of strong-arm tactics, violence,

bullying and gang-style control of street women.

So how was Robina involved with the Messinas?

Records show one of the brothers, Attilio Messina,

had been convicted of living off her immoral earnings.

But her family suggested there was more to her relationship.

It must have been more than just pimp/prostitute.

Cos after all, members of her mother's family had met him.

There's a bigger story there somewhere.

Police intelligence records reveal that the couple lived together as man and wife

and that Attilio paid for Raymond's private education at a top boarding school.

With Attilio playing happy families,

where was Raymond's father?

And why did he wait until Raymond was 15

before putting his name on the birth certificate?

Grimble had a name. Raymond Maynard.

But his research keeps leading to dead ends.

So knowing about Raymond's mother's criminal connections,

Grimble decides to look up the name Raymond Maynard in the police records

and makes a surprising discovery.

I went through the police records

and we identified a Raymond Maynard.

At that stage, you wouldn't know whether he was our guy or not.

But it turns out this particular one we followed through

was also known as Attilio Messina.

Grimble discovers that Attilio Messina also went by the name of Raymond Maynard.

In fact, all the Messina brothers adopted English sounding names

in an attempt to blend in.

So why would Attilio now be claiming to be Raymond Jnr's father?

Grimble has his own theory as to why he wanted to register the birth.

The Messina family were having a running conflict with the Home Office.

I think they were being deported for their criminal life.

The fact that he got this declaration I think was probably an attempt

to show to the authorities that he's got a child

and that's one reason why he shouldn't be deported.

The Messinas were facing deportation after an expose in the press.

A front-page exclusive detailed their vice trade activities

and forced the police to take action against them.

The brothers ended up in court and the authorities started moves to deport them.

It is around this time that Raymond's birth is re-registered.

Could it have been a further attempt of the Messinas to flout the law?

Whatever the truth, the birth certificate is a legal document

so in the eyes of the law, Attilio Messina, who also went by the name of Raymond Maynard,

was Raymond's father.

And this meant that any of his living relatives

would be entitled to a share of Raymond's estate.

Grimble now has the task of finding out if there are any heirs descended from these gangsters.

Luckily for him, the police records already have most of the information he needs.

It was good to see all those records from so many years ago

compiled by the Foreign Office or whoever was trying to deport them.

They've obviously had to go in depth into the family background.

So you get a lot of information there, which for genealogies would be marvellous!

If every time you had something like that, half your work would be done.

But once you get to the stage where they must have been deported,

zilch, nothing.

After they were deported, most of the brothers moved to San Remo in Italy.

Further investigations by Grimble showed that all five of the Messina brothers

and their sister, Emma, had died without having any children.

So the Messina stem of the family tree had died out.

None of Raymond's £250,000 estate would be going to the descendants of these gangsters.

We've dealt with families that have been on the edge of crime and things like that,

but to be heavily involved in the Mafia, a Sicilian family,

if there had been a lot of family still around,

I think I would have volunteered one of the others to go and sign them!

In the end, all of Raymond's heirs are on the maternal side of the family.

Raymond's mother, Robina, was one of eight children.

It is her nephews and nieces and their children, all 23 of them,

who are entitled to a share of the estate.

Elsie Powers, the granddaughter of Robina's sister, Isabella,

is one such heir.

She knows very little about her mother's side of the family.

I was really glad when they contacted me.

Really glad, because it let me know a side of the family that I never knew existed.

Because I always knew just the one side of the family.

Keen to know more about her mysterious cousin and benefactor,

Elsie travelled to Oxford with her husband.

I'd like to find out what he done for a living

and who all his friends were.

Um, how long he's been here

in this area.

Elsie and Fred met up with Raymond's neighbours.

This is the photo album, as it says, which we found in the house

in a locked cupboard on the side of the stairs, going upstairs.

-Wow! Look at him.

-These are photographs of Ray.

-Right.

-His eyebrows were remarkable because they were painted on.

-Tattooed on.

-Tattooed.

-His head was tattooed.

-His head was tattooed.

-Who's he like?

-Like Roy.

Does he remind you of people?

-He looks like my brother.

-Really?

It puts a face to the name

that I never knew.

He does look awful like my young brother.

There's a canny resemblance to him.

It's a good picture, if you take away the hair.

If you took away the hair and made him a bit fatter, that's what he looked like.

To me, he's part of the family now.

He's a family member. It's just a shame we never knew that.

How did he start out? Did he go to college or go to university?

He gradually worked his way through three separate psychiatric nursing levels.

And then he applied to go to what is now called Harris Manchester College.

It was then called just Manchester College in Oxford.

He went there as a mature student

and then he transferred from there to Oriel College

and eventually took his degree.

The Messinas' money paid for Raymond's school education.

Despite his unconventional upbringing,

he ended up studying at Oxford University.

It is believed that he taught Sociology after he graduated.

In 1982,

he bought a three-bedroomed house,

Wuthering Heights in Oxford.

It was as eccentric as the man himself, and Ray's friend Kate O'Kane showed Elsie around.

-Have you not seen the house before?

-No. I didn't even know that he existed.

-So this is the house.

-Oh, yes.

It's always been blue and yellow, ever since I've known it.

Right.

It is colourful!

He was a colourful character.

Despite the house having three bedrooms, Raymond chose to live in the garage,

renting rooms in the house to people in dire straits,

mainly ex-psychiatric patients.

He saw it as his public duty.

He moved into here.

-Did he?

-Yes. Now, this was the garage.

-His heater's up on the wall.

-My, it's so...

This is where he lived.

Goodness.

Got a little stove or something.

Raymond lived in the garage to help other people.

Now his quarter-of-a-million-pound estate will go on to benefit others.

I think it's sad he lived here on his own.

Just a pity we didnae get to know him, really.

And be able to talk.

But no-one really got to know Raymond that well.

He was a complex man, haunted by dark family secrets

which he kept locked within himself.

He was a great eccentric who died as he lived, in a way.

And who I don't think would have wanted it any other way.

That's what he chose and that's what happened.

If you'd like to find out more about how to build a family tree

or write a will, go to:

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