Cornish/Nearne Heir Hunters

Today the heir hunters are in the East End of London

searching for beneficiaries to an estate that's lain unclaimed for almost a decade.

RINGS DOORBELL

Somewhere out there are some long lost relatives who have no idea

they're in line for a windfall.

Could the heir hunters be knocking at your door?

-On today's programme...

-Is anyone else not doing very much?

..Neil feels the pressure as he goes out on a limb.

It's a big gamble. If it pays off,

we'll all be heroes. If it doesn't, then unfortunately,

I have to pay for certificates which we may not need.

And the death of a reclusive woman in Torquay uncovers an incredible story

of courage in the struggle against the tyranny of Nazi Germany.

They all were willing to take the risk.

It was a very great risk because if they could be captured by the enemy,

goodness knows what would happen.

Plus, how you may be entitled to inherit an unclaimed estate

held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

Every year in the UK,

an estimated 300,000 people die without leaving a will.

If no relatives are found,

then any money that's left behind will go to the Government.

Last year, they made £14 million from unclaimed estates.

That's where the heir hunters come in.

They make it their business to track down missing relatives

and help them claim their rightful inheritance.

At the end of the day, the money does go to the rightful people

and not to the Government.

It's 7am at the offices of heir hunters, Fraser and Fraser,

and the Treasury has just released its weekly list of unclaimed states.

If someone dies without leaving a will with no known next of kin

and their estate is worth £5,000 or more,

then it will appear on this list.

Today, the team's first job

is to see if they can identify the estates that are worth the most.

Out of several possibilities, one case in particular

has caught boss Neil's eye, but it's a bit of a risky proposition.

I think I'm going to take a very big gamble today.

I'm going to work a case of Albert William Charles Cornish.

The unusual thing about this case is that Albert died in 2004

but his estate has only just appeared on the Treasury's list.

This could mean that he had a small shareholding of around £5,000

that has only just come to light.

But Neil is banking on this case being worth a lot more.

He has discovered that after his death,

Albert's house was sold for over £300,000.

My gamble is either a £300,000 estate or maybe £5,000.

I hope it's up near the 350 otherwise the gamble's really failed.

The value of estates is really important to the heir hunters because they work on commission,

earning a percentage of the amount that's claimed by each heir they sign.

As the boss, it's Neil's job to identify the high-value cases

so the whole team is relying on his judgement.

Albert Cornish died aged 79 on 18th February, 2004,

in Hackney, East London. He left no will

and not even a photograph survives of him.

But his neighbour Ted Sawyer remembers him vividly.

Albert had a face a little bit like an owl.

He had a round face and a small nose and big round eyes.

Albert had lived in this house all his life.

His parents had died there, as had his brother, Ronald.

And in his later years, Albert lived there alone with his cat.

He was well-known to everyone in the neighbourhood.

He would be cutting the hedge, he would be tinkering with his car.

He used to sit in the car and read the newspaper, actually.

He was a little old man

but he looked like he really owned his bit of the street.

Albert was very much a part of the local community,

even towards the end when he became very deaf.

If you had to go to the house and try and get him to the door,

you virtually had to knock the house down.

It was a great big cast-iron Victorian knocker

and you had to hammer and hammer.

Albert lived his whole life in this corner of East London

and eventually passed away in the same house he'd been born in.

There's this wonderful sense of satisfaction

knowing that he did manage to live out his life here.

He passed away peacefully at home.

Albert is a simple, straightforward human being

that was very, very rooted in this place.

Albert was clearly a Londoner, born and bred.

But the question Neil needs to answer is did he ever actually own

the family home in Hackney?

If he didn't, then his estate is probably only worth £5,000

and Neil knows that they couldn't make enough profit from an estate

that size to even cover the basic costs of an investigation.

Neil needs to find out as soon as possible if this case

is going to be worth his while.

Do you want to go over to Hackney, mate? E5.

So he sends someone over to the property

to see what they can uncover.

I'm not entirely sure about the address. Try doing an enquiry there.

Heir hunting relies heavily on research done in the office,

but it's the senior researchers on the road like Ewart Lindsay

who are the public face of the company. They're based

all over the country and it's their job to follow up any lead...

I think you're probably expecting me.

..and make sure that they get to the heirs

ahead of the competition.

On cases like this,

often the best place to start is with the neighbours.

RINGS DOORBELL

They can supply vital information about the deceased.

The gentleman died back in 2004.

I don't know if you were here at that time?

-No, we've only been here five years.

-Five, OK. All right, thank you. Cheers.

But this morning, the only neighbour

he gets to speak to is a relative newcomer to the street

and never knew Albert.

It was a long shot, anyway.

We need someone who's been living there since 2004 and before.

It's a frustrating start for Ewart.

He hasn't managed to find out anything about Albert or his family,

not to mention whether he owned his house or not.

Back in the office and it's a busy morning

with everyone working hard on various different cases.

Tony!

Neil's managed to recruit case manager Tony Pledger to help him

but he can't afford to divert anyone else away from more obviously lucrative investigations.

This marriage is right, I know that.

Straight away, it looks like they've stumbled across a real find.

I've got Percy on here. I've got Rich, Ted and Ernest.

Someone has done some work on the Cornish family tree

and posted it online. If it's correct,

it identifies a living heir in Australia.

But early enthusiasm soon turns to disappointment.

So, this one here is...

The family tree has identified that

and it should be that as the real birth.

That bit is wrong.

The online tree is riddled with mistakes.

The amateur genealogist has made

some basic errors in identifying

some of the members of Albert's family.

So that means they've got to throw it all out and start again.

Professional heir hunting is all about detail.

The only way to be sure is to go methodically back

through each generation,

checking every birth, marriage and death certificate as you go.

Without buying the certificates, it's easy to make a mistake.

In this situation, that's what they've done.

It's back to the drawing board for the two-man band

and Neil's beginning to feel the pressure.

Is anyone else not doing very much?

But no-one comes forward.

So it's all down to Tony who with the aid of the 1911 census

starts to rebuild Albert's family tree from the ground up.

Albert's parents were William Cornish and Rhoda Robinson.

Albert also had a brother Ronald who died a bachelor in 1997.

Neil and Tony now know that there are no near kin on this case,

meaning children or surviving siblings of the deceased.

So the next step is to look for cousins.

I've Amy Elisabeth Cornish.

They start with the paternal side of Albert's family.

By going back to an earlier census,

Tony has discovered that Albert's grandparents were

William Cornish and Clara Beetchenow.

Albert's father had three other siblings, Amy, Percy and Clara.

The question is, did they have children?

The first job is to look for marriage certificates,

and for that, Tony needs Ewart's help.

-What do you want now, Tony?

-'The marriage of Amy E Cornish,'

March, 1919, Hackney, I think.

-Okey-dokey.

-There's possibly three children off that.

Cheers. Bye.

Ewart heads off to the register office to track down

the all-important certificates

that will prove they're on the right track.

But at £30 a pop, they don't come cheap.

Meanwhile, Neil and Tony start searching for Albert's aunt

Amy Cornish's children.

It turns out she had a total of six from her marriage to John Tayler.

In 1922, they had girl triplets.

But sadly, like nearly all multiple births at that time,

all three of the girls died in infancy.

A decade went by and Amy went on to have three more children,

all of whom survived to adulthood.

If these Tayler children are still alive,

they would be Albert's first cousins and heirs to his estate.

Neil hopes the unusual spelling of the girls' surname

should count in his favour.

It's Tayler but spelt slightly differently than normal.

Instead of "or" on the end, it's "er".

So it's slightly easier to find. However...

I'm pulling my hair out because I haven't been able to find them.

I could do with a bit of assistance but it's not forthcoming.

Everyone is far too busy working their own potentially high-earning investigations

to stop and help Neil on a case that could turn out to be worthless.

What I found was this...

But senior researcher Alan takes pity on him

and steps into the breach.

I've got three possible matches for Dorothy I Tayler.

I concentrated on Dorothy I because it was a better combination.

That's what we thought as well.

The extra help makes a difference and at last there's a breakthrough.

Alan's discovered that at least one of Albert's first cousins, Dorothy, is still alive

and what's more, he's found a current phone number for her.

This is their first chance to contact a bona fide heir.

Tony goes to make the call.

I was hoping I could speak with you with regards to your late mother,

who I think was Amy Elizabeth formerly Cornish.

But his high hopes are met with frustration.

There's no-one in so all he can do is leave a message.

Thanks very much. Bye.

Once again, this case seems to have stalled and Tony's feeling edgy.

There are now three of them working this case in the office

as well as one of them on the road.

And with several certificates on order,

that's a lot of money that could be heading down the drain.

We've got no idea as to the value.

Because this house was sold,

we think there must be some value there

but it's complete wishful thinking on our part at the moment.

Coming up, suddenly it's all hands on deck

as the case of Albert Cornish breaks wide open.

Check that address out for him. He could still be alive, couldn't he?

But doubts over the value of the estate still

hang over the office, especially with Tony.

There is every possibility that he might have been a long-term tenant

and not in fact even owned the property.

Tragically, some people's amazing achievements

are never truly celebrated until after their death.

Some of the bravest and best

prefer to take their stories with them to the grave.

This was never more true than in the case of Eileen Neame.

Eileen died on 2nd September, 2010, in Torquay.

She lived a solitary existence, not really mixing with anyone in the town.

But she did regularly attend mass at her local Catholic Church.

Sister Damian remembers her as an enigmatic figure.

Eileen always came about an hour before mass,

read the paper, slipped up to the ladies' chapel.

She was a shadowy little figure going around the church.

My first encounter with Eileen was to ask her her name

which she sort of fob me off and said something to the effect,

that's not important.

She didn't invite conversation.

She was a mysterious figure

because you realise you're wondering, who is she?

Eileen passed away in her flat on Lisburne Crescent.

At first, her death seemed like one of hundreds that

local councils manage every year.

Torbay Council duly went to her home to look for any clues

to family members, but what they found was much more intriguing.

In amongst Eileen's things were old French currency,

letters written in French and several medals,

including an MBE.

Clearly, she had been someone very special,

but hadn't wanted anyone to know about it.

The press soon picked up on the story and reported that

Eileen had died alone with no-one to pay for her funeral.

To David Milchard of Fraser and Fraser,

this was clearly a job for the heir hunters.

It struck us as interesting.

There didn't appear to be any relatives

so I wanted somebody to have a look at it.

The first thing David did was to set about identifying Eileen's basic family tree.

We identified the birth of Eileen

and it appeared her father was a John Neame

and her mother was Spanish.

David found a record for Eileen's parents showing that

they were married in 1913 in Marylebone in London.

He then went on to find birth records for three other children,

Francis, Jacqueline and Frederick.

Although all the children had been born in England,

it turned out the whole family moved to France for a bit

and lived there between the wars.

In one fell swoop, David had found out more about Eileen

than anyone in Torquay ever had.

She'd always made sure to keep people at arms length,

even Sister Damian.

The first few times I took Eileen home,

she wouldn't let me drop her outside her house.

Once I said to her, Eileen...

Well, I didn't say Eileen cos I didn't know her name.

I said, I'm not dropping you here,

it's too late at night, it's too dark.

She wouldn't even allow me to see where she actually lived.

It seems that Eileen was so intent on secrecy

she even concealed her true nationality.

I assumed from her accent...

something about her was very French but she led me to believe

she was half French, half English.

The fact that Eileen was able to pass herself off as French

turned out to be the key to the mystery surrounding her life.

This reserved woman who guarded her identity so fiercely

and died surrounded by bravery medals was in fact a spy.

She had been a member of Churchill's Special Operations Executive,

the SOE, an elite group of men and women who had worked

undercover in France during the Second World War.

Squadron leader Beryl Escott

was a member of the Women's Auxiliary Air Force

and has written a book, The Heroines Of The SOE,

which features both Eileen and her sister, Jacqueline.

The work of SOE was

mainly to land agents to help...

the French gather together those who were willing to oppose the Germans

and become the Resistance.

As fluent French speakers, Eileen and her elder sister, Jacqueline,

were highly sought after for war work and they both signed up.

They were very patriotic, both of them.

Patriotic in respect of England,

patriotic in respect of France.

They were very annoyed that France

had made this peace treaty with the enemy.

All new recruits to the SOE

were sent on a rigorous training programme,

designed to help them cope with the demands

of the dangerous double life that they had volunteered for.

They also learned how to operate the tools of their trade,

the wireless transceivers that

they would use to send and receive coded messages.

On a moonlit night in March, 1944, just before her 23rd birthday,

Eileen was dropped into Occupied France.

She made her way to Paris

and found herself an apartment in Bourg-la-Reine.

From here, she was able to carry out her vital work right under the noses

of the German Army and Secret Police.

In 1943, it was considered that a wireless operator would stay free

for about six weeks

but they all were willing to take the risk.

It was a very great risk because if they could be captured

by the enemy, goodness knows what would happen.

Eileen was willing to take the risk.

Eileen had been given an alias - Jacqueline du Tertre,

and a codename - Rose, which she used in her transmissions.

After the war, she appeared in a documentary about the SOE.

Speaking in French and identifying herself only as Rose,

she recounts a terrifying story of an experience on a Paris train.

-TRANSLATION:

-I had my portable transmitter with me.

He asked me what I had in my suitcase.

I replied, "What? In my case? It's a gramophone."

"Oh, yes," he said, and I said to myself, "My God."

I knew then that I had to get off straight away at the first opportunity.

He wouldn't stop looking at me.

I got up and pretended I had reached my stop

and quickly stepped off the train with my case.

As I went past on the platform,

I could see him whispering to the other officers about me.

I knew he was suspicious so I had been right to get off

because they'd certainly have asked to see inside the case.

It would have been dreadful because they would have seen the transmitter.

As war raged in Europe, Eileen managed to evade capture

for many months, but one day she returned

to her original apartment to send an urgent message.

Just as she had finished, the Gestapo burst in

and took her to their headquarters for interrogation.

-TRANSLATION:

-They took me into a room where there was a bath

and they held me under the water.

You suffocate under the water but you must stick to your story.

I remembered what we'd been taught.

Never to be afraid, never let them dominate you.

Amazingly, Eileen managed to convince the Germans that she was

a French girl sending messages for her wealthy industrialist boss.

They didn't shoot her

but she was sent to the notorious Ravensbruck concentration camp

known simply as women's hell.

It was a place where people were worked to death one way or another.

Eileen was expected to sink or swim in this dreadful concentration camp.

They were on such very, very low rations. They were starving.

They were starving to death.

Coming up - even in captivity, Eileen never gives up the fight.

It was snowing and there was ice.

The whole camp was suffering from typhoid

but she was always looking for an opportunity to escape.

Heir hunters solve thousands of cases a year and millions of pounds

are paid out to rightful heirs, but not every case can be cracked.

The Treasury has a list of over 2,000 estates that have baffled

heir hunters and remain unsolved.

Could you be the heir they've been searching for?

Could you be in line for a windfall worth hundreds, thousands

or even millions of pounds?

Estates stay on the list for up to 30 years and today,

we are focusing on three names.

Are they relatives of yours?

Eric Vincent Bedward died in Peckham, London in October 2000.

Bedward is originally a Welsh name but nowadays,

the highest concentration of Bedwards live in Staffordshire.

Ivor Herbert Saddington died in Kettering in September 2003.

The name Saddington originates from a village in Leicestershire.

Do you remember him?

Ivy Belinda Freeguard died in Oxford in December 2008.

Freeguard is a rare name in the UK and may indicate German ancestry.

Were you a friend or neighbour of Ivy's?

If no heirs of hers are found, her money will go to the government.

If the names Eric Bedward,

Ivor Saddington or Ivy Freeguard mean anything to you,

or someone you know, you could have a fortune coming your way.

The heir hunters are investigating the case of Albert Cornish

who died in 2004 aged 79.

Boss Neil picked up this case from the Treasury's list of unclaimed estates

taking a chance on Albert having owned the house he lived in

which would mean that his estate could be worth up to £350,000.

I've got a gut feeling that he did at one time own the property

because he's lived in it such a long time.

His parents both passed away at the same address.

But Neil knows that if he's got it wrong, he will be paying for it.

It's a big gamble. If it pays off, we'll all be heroes.

If it doesn't, then unfortunately I have to put my hand in my pocket

and pay for certificates which we may not need.

Albert was one of the last of a dying breed of old East Enders.

If I was to describe the way that Albert might be remembered,

it would be as a representative of a particular sort of group

of Londoners that lived in London throughout the war years

and crossed the generations

and made it through to our generation.

Albert was 14 when the Second World War broke out,

too young to go and fight.

Instead, he went to work in a local factory in Homerton High Street.

These days, it's a carpet warehouse.

Back then, it was the Oppenheimer tobacco pipe factory.

It's thought that Albert was a bowl turner,

one of 30 or so skilled workers who shaped the pipe bowls

out of dense briar wood using a mechanical lathe.

The machines are not like today. They were run from overhead shafting.

That is noisy.

His job definitely would have been a hands-on job

because unlike today when things are fed in automatically,

he actually had to by hand put it on

and do it accurately to the right speed.

Albert worked at the factory at the end of his street

for over 40 years until it closed down in 1981.

Times and fashions had changed

and the demand for pipes had simply disappeared.

The golden era of pipes was before the last world war.

Everybody had a pipe and everybody smoked.

If you look at old pictures of people crossing Westminster Bridge,

you don't count the number of people smoking pipes,

you count the number of men that aren't smoking.

It's just completely different.

Back in the office, the priority for the heir hunters isn't Albert's job,

it's finding out whether he owned his house.

Case manager Tony Pledger isn't convinced.

He died six years ago.

He was probably a bachelor. He was born in the house that he died in.

His parents lived in the house for even longer.

There is every possibility that he might have been a long-term tenant

and not in fact even owned the property.

There may be uncertainty surrounding the value of the case

but an experienced heir hunter like Tony doesn't let that get in the way

of a thorough investigation and his persistence has just been rewarded.

South Oggenden, OK, thanks for that.

Earlier, he left a message for Dorothy Tayler,

Albert's first cousin on his father's side.

She's just called him back and has given him addresses for herself

and her sister who both live in Essex.

Time now to call in Dave Hadley,

another of the company's senior researchers on the road.

We got two people, sisters, both living in south of London.

Left a message with one of them

but if you could make your way over there then I'll give you a bell.

All right, bye.

This is good news.

They could be on the way to signing their first heirs.

Neil's optimistic.

Dave Hadley's now heading over there.

He's half an hour, maybe an hour away,

so in that sort of time we hopefully will get to speak to someone.

Fingers crossed it's right.

Despite all the uncertainty, Neil's determined to wrap up this case

and for that, he needs to track down any heirs on Albert's mother's side of the family,

so he calls on Allan and Debbie to scour the censuses

and help him establish the maternal family tree.

We've got to find that marriage, Edward William Robinson.

We need to find that so we can do a search after 11.

Albert's mother was Rhoda Robinson. Her parents were Edward and Rose.

A little more research reveals that she had two brothers,

Edward and Albert.

-Who's got Albert Edward Robinson's probate?

-I've just run that through.

It goes to a son, John Edwin Robinson.

I'm just going to find his birth.

Neil has ordered a copy of Albert's uncle's will.

Wills are a good source of information for the heir hunters

especially when it comes to identifying children.

This one has led them to another of Albert's first cousins.

-Did you say you checked that address out for him?

-Who, the son?

Nobody else is mentioned but that's her name.

Well, he could still be alive.

Yeah, I just got it. John E Robinson.

Finding an initial for a second name may not seem like much

but for the heir hunters, it's huge.

As names go, John Robinson is almost as common as John Smith

but with the extra initial 'E,'

Neil can significantly narrow the search.

Even so, he's still got a big job on his hands.

I think there's about 900 of them to look at.

Meanwhile, Dave Hadley has finally arrived in Essex,

hoping to meet Albert's first cousins on his father's side.

They are potential first heirs on this case.

After a day that's been dogged with false starts and uncertainty,

this would be an important boost for the whole team.

Are you Mrs Dorothy Derby? My name's David Hadley.

First up is elder sister Dorothy's house.

-I've got my sister in here.

-That's all right.

If you don't mind her being there, I don't mind her being there.

This is an unexpected bonus for Dave.

He gets to talk to both sisters at the same time.

Basically, what's happened is that a cousin of yours...

I know who it is.

-Who is it?

-Ellen.

-No.

-Vera.

-No.

-Patsy?

-No.

The sisters seemed to be running through every family member they can think of.

-Vera, Hilda?

-No.

-With no success. Dave gives them a clue.

It's a he.

-It's a he, it's a male.

-It's a male.

-Male?

-Yeah, a male cousin.

-Albert.

-Is this cousin named Albert?

-Yes, Albert.

He's left a little bit of money and because he didn't make a will,

whatever he's left has to get passed to his blood relatives.

I see.

And you're cousin so you'll be entitled to a share of the estate, as will you.

Having explained the full procedure to them,

Dorothy and Margaret decide to sign up with the company

who in return for a commission will help them make their claim to the Treasury.

Dave heads off leaving the sisters to contemplate

what they might do with their unexpected windfall.

If I won the money, I'd like to have my three-piece suite re-covered.

I don't like the colour of it. It don't go with my carpet!

Back at the office and the maternal side of this case

has suddenly all fallen into place.

-Got an address for her?

-She's a spinster.

They discovered that Albert's other uncle Edward

was married in 1930 in Hackney to Ada Rich

and they had one daughter, Jean, who would be Albert's first cousin.

Neil is delighted.

The mother, Rhoda, born in 1897, we found her on the 1901 census

and the 1911 census. That again has given us

the full extent on the maternal side of the family.

Had to make sure there's no births after the census

but everything else looks fine.

All the time, we've been able to be fairly confident

that we have the full extent of the family just because of the census.

Tony calls Dave Hadley straight away with this new information.

She's living in Bishop's Stortford.

-Can you try that Bishop's Stortford one on your way out?

-OK.

And there's more good news.

Yours is June Porter, yeah? 1974, is it?

The team have finally sifted through the 900 or so John E Robinsons

and they think they found the right one

which means another call to Ewart.

There is an up-to-date address for him in Dagenham. I'm off to see him.

Meanwhile, Dave has arrived at Bishop's Stortford

and is chatting with Jean, who it turns out knew her cousin Albert well.

The two of them kept in touch right up to the end of his life.

The last time I saw him,

I moved here in January 2001 and I saw him just before I moved here.

He wrote a little letter to me once saying that

I didn't really expect him to come down here because he was very frail.

I haven't been able to come and see you then, you know.

Jean is also a good source of information about the rest of the family

and is able to confirm a lot of the company's research.

-You say it was John was the son, John Robinson.

-Yeah, yeah.

I haven't seen him since about the '70s, about '72, something like that.

He was working on the Redbridge Barrow.

He left there and went somewhere else and we never heard of him any more.

What's the postcode here?

After listening to what Dave has to say,

Jean agrees to the company's terms and signs up but that's not all.

Dave still needs to ask the all-important question

and he knows that an entire day's work for the company

is resting on the answer.

-Did he live in his own house, was it his own place?

-No, it was rented.

It's actually... His mother and father...

my father used to live there years ago,

so that shows you how long they lived there.

The mystery is finally solved.

The house that Albert's family lived in for almost a century,

the only home they ever knew, never actually belonged to him.

It's a crushing blow to Neil.

Throughout the investigation,

he's clung to his belief that the estate would have benefited

from the sale of the property but it turns out he was wrong.

In the end, it's one of those gambles.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

The research on this has gone quite well but unfortunately,

as the firm goes, we are not going to make any money.

In total, they found six heirs to Albert Cornish's estate.

Most of them were first cousins including John E Robinson,

who Ewart eventually tracked down in Dagenham.

-Hello.

-Hi, how are you?

-Can I speak to Mr Robinson, please?

-Yes, I'm Mr Robinson.

-John Robinson?

-Yes.

After the Treasury had processed the claims made by Albert's heirs

on his estate, they revealed that he had left a total of £6,700

which was then shared amongst them.

Not exactly a fortune but certainly something to remember him by.

Albert's passing marked the end of an era.

The house in Hackney is still there

but the street will never be the same again.

Back on the case of World War Two spy Eileen Nearne.

Thanks to press and media interest, the whole nation was gripped

by the story of this brave woman who had faced incredible danger

and hardship while working as an undercover agent in occupied France.

Eileen had been captured by the Germans

and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp

where by sheer force of will, she survived.

It was snowing and it was ice.

The whole camp was suffering from typhoid

but she was always looking for an opportunity to escape.

Finally, in 1945, after ten months of captivity, Eileen saw her chance.

They were being marched through the night to another camp

ahead of the advancing Allies.

As they passed through a forest, Eileen broke rank and fled.

It was an audacious move and she must have known

she was risking her life.

Eventually, she managed to make contact with the British Army

who arranged for her to be brought back to England.

Her war was over but her contribution would never be forgotten.

General Eisenhower was impressed by the support of the resistance in France.

He considered that their efforts

had shortened the war in Europe by nine months.

That's a terrific claim to make. They had been very useful.

For David Milchard, getting the opportunity to investigate

such a fascinating and unique life story

was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

It was quite amazing to think that she was captured, I think,

at least three times and made some escapes.

She must have been very clever and very resourceful,

I would have thought.

But David knew that a high profile case like this

would have attracted many of the other heir-hunting companies

and he was still no closer to finding a living heir to Eileen's estate.

He did know that Eileen had two brothers and a sister

but the question was, did they have any children?

The first one he looked into was Jacqueline.

She also joined the SOE and she too spent a lot of time in France.

She never married and she died in the 1980s without any children.

But it seems that the sisters were not the only heroes

in this extraordinary family.

Their older brother Francis had also worked for the intelligence services.

He had a son, Eileen's nephew, but tragically

he was killed at the beginning of the war fighting in France.

That left only one brother - Frederick, David's last hope.

Frederick had been in the Air Force during the war and survived.

He then went on to marry and had a daughter, Eileen's niece,

who was still alive and was traced to Tuscany.

It appears that a niece, living in Italy, is the only claimant.

In the end, the team made contact with the niece

and they put her in touch with the council dealing with her aunt's estate.

Unfortunately, Fraser's didn't make any money on this one.

The niece decided to process it herself

but from an interest point of view, it was very good.

Makes quite a change to our normal case

so it was very enjoyable to do, really.

It was later revealed that Eileen's estate had been worth £13,000.

Not a lot for a fully paid-up war hero.

However, news of her great bravery and modesty

prompted an outpouring of gratitude and emotion

from her local community.

A few months later, they got the chance to say thank you.

Torbay council erected a blue plaque in her honour

and local people came together to celebrate the life

and achievements of this extraordinary woman.

This is a very special lady we're celebrating today.

Believe me, it's some amazing story.

For somebody my sort of age, 37,

to actually only read about the war in the history books,

it sort of brings it alive to know there was somebody

of this outstanding bravery and humility in Torbay.

Absolutely wonderful.

A very brave lady. She got the MBE.

I hold the MBE but I'm sure what she did is far more

than I ever would have ever did.

It's a great honour to be here today.

For Sister Damian, the mystery of the quiet woman

who guarded her privacy so fiercely has finally been laid to rest.

Now that I know Eileen's name, now that I know about Eileen,

she fooled all of us.

Looking back, I can only explain it that she had never been

properly debriefed and she thought of herself as a spy.

A remarkable life and one that Eileen herself admitted was hard to let go.

(TRANSLATION) When I returned after the war,

I, along with lots of others, missed that kind of life.

Everything seemed so ordinary.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd