Smee/Valentine Heir Hunters

The heir hunters have taken on a case in Stevenage

that could be worth as much as £250,000.

'Is it Slee or Smee?'

'Smee, with an M.'

-Yep, as in...

-'"Me!"'

-"Me! Me!"

Yes.

They're looking for long-lost relatives who have no idea

they could be in line for a windfall.

Could they be ringing your bell?

Today on Heir Hunters,

the tragic tale of a man who retreated from the world.

One time, that back garden was full of really high brambles.

It was horrendous, it was like from a fairy story-type thing.

He left a fortune of £250,000.

But can the team find an heir?

It's actual knowledge of the family that we don't have at the moment.

And, the missing children

that lead one heir hunter from the chilly streets of Dundee...

..to the sultry heat of Calcutta.

My life in India was a bit like living a life in colour,

and coming back to Britain,

it was like living a life in black and white.

Plus, how you could be entitled to unclaimed estates

where heirs still need to be found.

Could you be in line for a cash payout?

Every year in the UK,

it's estimated over 300,000 die without leaving a will.

If no relatives are found,

then any money they've left behind will go to the Government.

And last year, that was a staggering £14 million.

But there are over 30 specialist firms competing

to stop this happening. They're the heir hunters,

and they make it their business to track down missing relatives

and help them claim their rightful inheritance.

People are entitled to this money. We make sure they get it.

It's Thursday in London,

and overnight, the Treasury has put out the list of unclaimed estates.

The offices of heir hunters Fraser and Fraser

have been open since 7am.

Partner Neil Fraser is going through the Treasury list,

and one name, George David Smee, is already looking promising.

We know there's a property. That property's in Stevenage,

which is a commuter town for London.

We're looking at a reasonable value. 250,000 as a wild guess,

but I haven't even had a chance to look at the property, really.

It's a large sum of money,

and there is likely to be a lot of competition on this case.

The diseased, George Smee, owned this terrace house in Stevenage.

He had lived here for nearly 30 years,

and in the last two decades developed agoraphobia,

and had support from the local council.

He was 57 when he passed away, dying alone at home from a heart attack.

His former neighbour, Sue Usher, recalls when he first moved in.

He wasn't a noisy, outgoing man. Fairly shy, if I recall.

I don't remember specifically what he did for work,

but I think he was either something to do with computers,

I'm sure he was something to do with computers, a bit of an analyst

or something like that, or an accountant-y type of person.

For the first ten years, David left for work at 8am every day.

But then, his circumstances changed.

He told my husband once he'd earned too much money,

so he was going to take six months off.

But that six months became a year.

And soon, it became clear that David was avoiding people altogether.

We didn't used to see him for days sometimes.

If you did a bit of gardening,

you could hear him out there at two and three in the morning,

cos he didn't like the sun. You could hear his breathing.

David spent nearly 20 years as a recluse.

Sue moved away from the area a year ago,

and she was sorry to hear that he had passed away alone.

I think it's a tragedy that when people get mental-health issues,

it's not something that can always be rectified.

And certainly, his lifestyle was not conducive

to him overcoming that, cos he didn't have family

to sort of snap him out of it, if you like.

In all the time Sue lived next door to David,

he had only one visitor, and she believes he has no family.

The heir hunters think his terraced property could be worth

as much as £250,000.

In the London offices, a high-value case like this takes top priority.

We need an inquiry being done in Stevenage, mate.

If we can do it on the phone, then it's OK.

But I haven't got any neighbours or anything at the moment.

Heir hunters work on commission,

earning a percentage of the money received by each heir they sign.

And a large estate could attract a lot of interest.

The team need to find the heirs to David's estate fast,

or they might lose out to competing heir hunters.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Case manager Frances Brett will lead the search.

Hello.

She's hoping her 23 years' experience in heir hunting

will give them the edge.

Smee, S-M-E-E.

And they've got something on their side.

Smee is an unusual name.

Take care, bye-bye.

All's going well, but there's some confusion.

For some reason, the advert says he's meant to be called George David.

So far, I've found everything is David George,

including the address, including the birth,

and...I haven't got a marriage at the moment, so...

I'm not sure why it's done differently.

A misprinted name can result in many hours of wasted research,

so it's lucky that Neil's spotted the mistake early in the process.

Working with David Smee's name the right way round,

the team set to work, building a family tree.

Take one, Jo. Mike'll take one, I'll take the other.

-You get the good one?

-Er, no.

Heir hunters use family trees like treasure maps,

guiding them step by step through each generation

until they strike gold and find someone entitled to inherit.

Right, mum and dad. Arthur G. Lily. L-I-L-Y.

-Frances already has possible parents for David Smee.

-Isha.

-Yeah?

-What are you doing?

-And researcher Isha Mae have discovered a brother.

I'm looking for a Charles J Smee.

I've done an infant death and there's no trace.

I'm trying to see if he's alive.

So, very quickly,

the team think they've found people who are David Smee's family.

His father was Arthur. His mother was Lily Sherry.

And he had a brother, Charles, who died in 2002 with no children.

As all of these people have passed away, the team now know

that they need to look for cousins if they're going to find an heir.

Frances is trying to find records for the person they believe

is David's mother, Lily Sherry.

You have looked for a birth for a Lily Sherry? L-I-L-Y.

And Sherry as in what you drink.

But she's struggling to find a birth record.

Without Lily's birth record, they won't be able to trace heirs,

and it seems every avenue they take throws up a blank.

Frances thinks they need to get

a travelling heir hunter up to Stevenage

to knock on doors to check if neighbours know

about David's mother, Lily.

That's why I think he needs to do an inquiry

that he hasn't had his mum in some home somewhere.

Isha's trying to pick him up as we speak.

In Tunbridge Wells, travelling heir hunter Bob Barrett

is collecting a certificate on another case.

A retired detective, Bob is one of a group of highly experienced

probate researchers who spend Thursdays hunting for clues.

-They talk to neighbours...

-Did he live on his own?

..chase certificates and visit the heirs.

Often, it's their dogged determination

that gives them the edge when it comes to reaching

the heirs before the competition.

Is it Slee or Smee?

-'Smee.'

-S-M?

Yep, as in...

-'"Me!"'

-"Me! Me!"

Bob will stand by to wait for developments.

Meanwhile, in the office,

Neil's made progress on David's father Arthur's side of the tree.

What we're working on is a possible birth of the father,

Arthur George Smee.

And if that's right, he's got a sister and two brothers.

And once I've written them on the tree,

Noel's writing them over my shoulder, and he's...

-hopefully getting ready to write them up.

-Yeah.

From the research, they found that David's father Arthur

had a brother called Alfred.

Alfred had a son, William.

If they have the right family, he would be David's cousin

and an heir to his estate.

And perhaps he can solve the mystery of where Lily,

David's mother, was born.

Frances has a number for him, and she's about to make the call.

Hello, I'm terribly sorry to trouble you.

I'm phoning from a firm of probate researchers in London.

I was hoping to get in contact with a William Smee.

With a large estate of £250,000 in the balance,

the pressure is on Frances.

Thank you very much.

Is this man David's cousin and heir?

A potential cousin of yours has passed away.

Now, I don't know whether you know very much about the Smee family

that can help us in this regard to make sure

we are talking the right family?

Coming up,

the chase is on to find an heir ahead of the competition,

but is Frances heading for a brick wall?

He really didn't know anything.

In the hunt to find heirs,

probate researchers sometimes uncover secrets

and long-lost stories that amaze

and surprise younger generations.

One of the things that people love about my company is that

it opens up a window into their past.

They're often able to find a lot about their ancestors.

Dundee, on the mouth of the River Tay in Scotland,

was home to Mae Valentine.

She passed away in 2009 at the age of 82,

leaving an estate of £13,000.

Mae had learning difficulties,

and had spent most of her life in care homes.

For the last year of her life, Mae was happily settled

in Bearehill Care Home, Brechin,

where she was known as a bit of a character.

She was a very affectionate lady.

She loved to sing,

and she always had a smile for you.

Sometime she was not in a good mood,

but if you went along and give her some attention,

then she would be better with you.

Another staff member remembers Mae adored music,

and was happy to share her love of it with everyone.

Mae liked concerts.

She liked singing Daisy, Daisy. That was her most favourite song.

She used to sing at the top of her voice, Daisy, Daisy.

It was so nice.

She was so happy.

When Mae took ill before she passed away,

Lynn regularly took the bus to see her in hospital,

a one-and-a-half-hour journey.

When I used to get to hospital to visit Mae,

she always had a big smile.

She did recognise me, she had a big smile on her face.

It was nice to spend time with her.

After Mae's death, staff at the care home

passed Mae's personal belongings

and money over to the authorities, believing that

she had no family. Her name went onto a Scottish list

of unclaimed estates,

which is called the QLTR, or Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer.

This office manages unclaimed funds north of the border.

Hector Birchwood of heir hunting firm Celtic Research

decided to take up the case.

The deceased was Mae Geoffrey Valentine.

She died a spinster in 2009.

In the hunt for heirs,

Hector knew the first stage was to map out Mae's immediate family.

We had to find out when she was born and where she was born.

As it happened, she was born in Scotland.

The next stage was to see who her parents were

and if she had any siblings.

We located a couple of siblings.

Mae's parents were Charles and Mary.

She had a sister, Jeannie, who had died in infancy

and a brother, Charles, who passed away with no children.

Mae and her brother Charles were in their early 20s

when their mother Mary died.

As they both had special needs and it was the 1950s,

they were put into care, a common practice at that time.

Heir hunter Hector knew that if he was going to find an heir

to Mae's £13,000 estate,

he would need to go further back in the family.

Mae Valentine's grandparents

were John and Elizabeth Valentine, nee Watson.

They appear to have had five children.

At first, Hector was pleased, because so many descendants

improves the odds of finding cousins who might be heirs to Mae's estate.

But as he started to look at her uncles and aunts,

his optimism faded.

As we were doing research on this particular case, we were finding

that some of the lines were dying

relatively young and not marrying,

not having children,

so, basically, our options were getting funnelled down.

Of Mae's four uncles and aunts, three of them

had passed away with no heirs.

Hector was down to the last aunt -

Jane, also known as Jeannie Valentine -

who had just one child, a daughter, Betty, in 1920,

who passed away in 2008.

But did Mae Valentine's cousin Betty have children

who could inherit her £13,000 estate?

Betty had a colourful history.

She was 19 when World War II broke out,

and had spent the entire war as a WAAF

in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.

The WAAFs played a key role supporting the forces,

doing everything from deciphering codes to intelligence.

After being stationed all around Britain, Mae's cousin Betty

returned to Dundee, where she met her husband Donald,

and they were married three months later.

When they got married,

you might say that Betty was in her prime to be able to have children.

Hector was hoping their marriage Mae have produced an heir.

But despite trawling through every birth record

in the British Isles, there were no signs of children at all.

The fact they didn't have any children posed a problem.

If no children could be found,

all of Mae's £13,000 estate would go to the Scottish Treasury.

But Hector wasn't about to give up, and his search

was to take him across continents.

Every case is in itself an enigma, and I have to go and resolve that.

Heir hunters work hard to solve thousands of cases a year,

ensuring 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 the heir hunters and remain unclaimed.

These estates stay on the list for up to 30 years,

and each one could be worth anything from £5,000 to many millions.

Today, we're focusing on three names from the list.

Are they relatives of yours?

Could you be in line for an unexpected windfall?

Kathleen Nappin died in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire,

on 17th September, 2002.

The surname Nappin is Anglo Saxon.

Are you related to the Nappin family?

Does Kathleen's cash belong to you?

Does the name Jean Prosho have a familiar ring?

Jean died in April 2005 in Plaistow, London.

Her surname, Prosho, certainly stands out from the crowd.

Perhaps you have someone with that name in your family?

Could you be entitled to Jean's cash?

Michael Jackson died in Nottinghamshire

on 10th December, 1993.

It's a high-profile name, but does it ring any bells for you?

Could you be an heir to his estate?

If the names Kathleen Nappin, Jean Prosho or Michael Jackson

mean anything to you, then you could have a fortune coming your way.

Heir hunters Fraser And Fraser are searching for heirs

on the estate of David Smee.

He died in Stevenage in January 2011.

Because he owned the terraced house he lived in,

they believe his estate could be worth as much as £250,000.

We've discovered that the deceased did own his own home.

So, depending on how much

of a mortgage or so he's got on the property,

that should make it a sizeable estate.

Neighbour Sue Usher remembers

when David first moved in, 30 years ago.

We used to have a big dartboard set up in our lounge,

and a couple of times, he came in and played darts,

and obviously got to know the family, got to know the kids,

and he gave my son his very first...

Well, not computer, but I think it was an Atari.

But when he gave up his work in computing,

David had begun to withdraw from the neighbours.

As the '90s came on,

he was having no contact, really, at all.

If I was out there, he didn't used to come out, or if we went out,

you know, he used to come in.

I've seen that scenario a couple of times.

Sue doesn't believe that David had any family, and as he didn't leave

a will, his substantial £250,000 estate could go to the Government.

In the London offices, the heir hunters

are trying to stop this happening.

They're hunting for relatives that could be entitled to his cash.

Case manager Frances Brett is on the phone to a William Smee.

The team have drawn up a family tree,

and they think William is David's cousin and an heir to his estate.

But they need him to confirm the research.

Now I don't know whether you know very much about the Smee family

that can help us in this regard?

Is this man David's cousin and an heir to his estate?

Oh, wonderful.

Brilliant.

They've got their first heir on the father's side of the family.

Haven't I just!

But this is only half the story.

Have you been in touch with that part of the family?

Not for years?

The team haven't been able to find a birth record

for Lily Sherry, David's mother.

Without her birth certificate,

they can't extend the search to find heirs on the maternal side.

At the moment, I'm not too sure about your Auntie Lily.

Neil's just done some research and believes Lily

Mae be from Northern Ireland, but needs the family to confirm this.

Has she now?

And they're in luck.

It looks like the heir's wife is a keen family historian.

Would you please say thank you very much to your wife

for having dug the tree out?

It's a real coup. Not only have they found their first heir,

but they've also been able to confirm the other side

of the family, saving hours of research.

It was really fortunate

that Mrs Smee had done some of the family history,

and that they knew that the deceased's mum

was older than her husband and came from Ireland.

Now they know where to look to find Lily's birth record,

and they'll be able to map out her side of the family.

But this case isn't wrapped up yet.

They still need the cousin to sign up with the company,

so Frances calls travelling heir hunter Bob Barrett.

-Hello, Bob.

-Hello.

You're going to Bognor Regis.

So, Bob will make his way to see the heir, William.

In the meantime, using Irish census records,

the researchers have found out more about David's mother Lily's origins.

She was one of many young Irish women

who came to London in the 1940s.

Lily was born in Lisnaskea in 1914 in rural Ireland.

It was tough times for this farming family.

From what we can glean from the 1911 census,

it seems the three generations of the family

lived in a very small farm holding.

Seven people living in a three-roomed dwelling,

so it sounds as if they were a fairly poor family.

It was difficult for young women like Lily to find employment

in the small rural communities of Ireland.

There was an expectation within Ireland at that time,

both the north and south, that the sons would stay and work the land.

The daughters were free to leave the land.

It couldn't support them.

So, there was almost an expectation

that the daughters would move out and find work elsewhere.

Lily in many ways typifies Irish female migration of the period.

She migrated as a single young woman looking for work in Britain.

For all young migrants to Britain, there would've been a culture shock.

But Lily's experience would have been extreme.

Of course, we must remember that she was arriving during the war years,

so she would have been coming into the Blitz.

From Ireland, from a small rural village like Lisnaskea,

to arrive in the middle of the Blitz must have been a terrifying experience.

She had no preparation for this. It was right in at the deep end.

So, I'm sure she probably would have been quite frightened

by what she encountered.

Despite the terror of London at war,

the city was to be Lily's home for the rest of her life.

In 1949, she went on to marry Arthur and have David and Charles.

Meanwhile, in the race to sign

the heir on David's father's side of the family,

Bob Barratt has made it to William Smee's house.

William is the son of David's Uncle Alfred, and he's David's cousin.

But they weren't in contact.

-Yeah, he died in January.

-Oh, right.

So, yeah, fairly recent.

Now, I don't know how much the estate's worth,

but we think there might be a property involved.

But of course, what we don't know is how much.

Obviously, being cousins, they shared the same grandfather.

But William's Uncle Arthur fell out with the family in the '40s,

for a surprising reason.

What happened was...

after the war, my Uncle Arthur came home

and he got the DER to put the radio rentals in

so that his mum could listen to the radio.

And the old man apparently threw a fit,

although Arthur was paying for it.

and they had a real big row, and they never spoke for 20-odd years.

And nor did my dad,

my dad took Arthur's side and Tommy took his side.

-It's normally over money.

-Yeah.

This wasn't, it was just over...

-Technology.

-Yeah.

And it's about who's head of the family

and who said you could do it, that sort of thing,

and the old power struggle sort of starts.

But it's a shame, isn't it?

It makes you feel quite sad now, because you think,

"Oh, now they've died and I didn't get to know them,"

but at the other end of the day...

I didn't really have an option.

No, quite. And I think all you can do in life

is look after and deal with your own life and your own close family.

Bob leaves the paperwork with William.

A very pleasant gentleman,

and I'm sure he'll end up signing an agreement with us.

Over the next few weeks,

the team make progress on David's mother's side,

tracking down cousins living in Northern Ireland.

In the end, David Smee's estate was worth around £100,000.

But with the research leading to more than 15 heirs,

partner Neil Fraser is still pleased.

I'm fairly happy we worked on that, we got the letters out

on the ones we haven't been able to see, but everything else is done.

But it's looking like quite a good case.

It's a sad fact of life that, despite having many first cousins,

David Smee died alone.

His former neighbour, Sue Usher, and her family will remember him.

I was informed by someone else that he'd passed away.

It was a surprise, how sad it made me.

You know, if someone's recluse in an area,

they become known as a recluse, don't they? Dave The Recluse.

Bit of a sad story.

Hector Birchwood of heir-hunting firm Celtic Research

was scouring birth records across the British Isles,

searching for heirs to the estate of Mae Valentine.

Mae passed away in 2009, at the age of 82.

She'd been a popular resident at the Bearehill Care Home

in Brechin, where she spent the last years of her life.

She had been in other institutions before.

Mae had a few friends within the home,

one of which was her best friend

that she came from Leaning House with.

They used to paint together, listen to music,

and she was always very keen on soft toys.

No relatives ever visited Mae in the care home,

and the staff knew that Mae's brother, Charles,

who also had special needs, died 19 years before.

When Mae passed away,

they decided to try and bury her next to her brother.

I phoned the Parks Department and asked

if there was any space for me,

and he got back to me and said, yes, there was.

I just thought it was a really nice end, then,

that both brother and sister were back reunited.

Mae had left £13,000 when she died.

Hector had been searching for Mae's family.

His last hope was Betty, Mae's cousin.

She had married in her 20s, to Donald.

If they had children, they would be heirs.

When we found Betty and Donald marrying,

we thought that Betty was in her prime to be able to have children,

and we couldn't find any children.

Cleverly, Hector decided to turn his research on its head.

Betty had died in 2008.

He took a look at Betty's death record to see who the informant was.

We found her death and we saw that there was an informant,

a son called Donald.

It was a major breakthrough, but Hector still couldn't find

a birth certificate to confirm his findings.

We thought maybe he was adopted or maybe he was born abroad.

In the 20th century, many families moved about the British Empire

on postings abroad.

Newlyweds Donald and Betty were from Dundee,

and this town had many historical connections with the jute industry.

Donald was employed as a mill manager

in the jute mills of Calcutta.

Jute, a rough fibre, was used to produce sacking.

It was the world's plastic packing material.

And for a long period of time, probably from the 1830s

right until the 20th century, there was an enormous worldwide demand

for jute.

Part of this demand was also fuelled by the cataclysmic conflicts

of the last century.

Jute was the great material during wartime, primarily for sandbags.

And so, the periods of boom in the Dundee jute industry

were the First World War and the Second World War.

For centuries, Dundee had a major centre for linen.

Linen was made with flax,

but this material wasn't tough enough for sacking and heavy use.

Jute was strong enough, but difficult to weave.

Until a neat solution presented itself.

The secret of Dundee's transition from flax to jute

was that Dundee was also a significant whaling centre.

The whale oil was just perfect as a material for softening the jute.

It made it possible to batch it and process it and spin it

and, ultimately, weave it.

Production was moved to the Indian subcontinent,

where the jute was grown,

and the mills needed experienced hands to run them.

The Dundonians who were drawn to the Calcutta jute industry

tended to be mill managers, they tended to be overseers, technicians,

and, indeed, these individuals were hugely, highly valued in Calcutta.

Betty and her mill manager husband Donald were residents in Calcutta

for at least 15 years of their married life.

And it's possible they had Donald and one other child there.

But how to know for sure?

Hector had a hunch where to look.

We looked for any migrations or immigrations

to and from the colonies, and we found a shipping-list record.

Shipping records are a vital source of information

about people's movements, and heir hunters often use them

to track missing heirs.

Sure enough, Hector struck gold.

We found a family travelling on this ship,

and we found that they had a daughter called Joanna,

and the ship list stated that she was born in India.

Hector was now able to map out Betty's branch of the family tree.

She had two children, Donald and Joanna, both born in India.

Joanna and Donald are first cousins once removed to the deceased,

and they are the only heirs that we've been able to locate

on this estate thus far.

Between them, they'll inherit Mae's £13,000 fortune.

In her home in Manchester, Joanna, known as Joey,

received the letter from Hector,

and at first she didn't know what to think.

My first impression was that it was just a scam

and I was just waiting for the bit at the bottom which said,

"Send your bank-account details and we will make sure

"the money is transferred into your account."

And I think, "Yeah, yeah - that'll be right."

And then I spoke to my brother about it and he said,

"No, no - this is a genuine company."

Joey had never heard of her mother's cousin Mae.

The name wasn't familiar at all,

because I'd heard nothing about her at all.

So it was a complete mystery, and a complete surprise, really.

Perhaps one of the reasons

was because Joey grew up in India, where her father worked.

One of the things I absolutely loved was, on a Sunday,

he used to take me over to the mill when the mill was all shut down,

and let me have a play with the dangerous machinery.

I absolutely loved that. The smell of jute was fantastic.

I still love the smell of jute.

And the mills were these massive, old Victorian buildings

with huge flywheels and cranky things and oil,

and they were just so exciting to go to.

I used to love going to the mill.

The family were housed in a luxurious compound

and lived a glamorous expat lifestyle.

It was a vivid and exciting time in Joey's life.

There was a swimming pool on the compound, and we used to come back

from school every day and go and have a swim for a bit.

But her idyllic life in India wasn't to last.

When she was eight or nine,

her mum, Betty, decided the children needed a British education.

We came back to Britain, and it was the early '60s, and it was freezing.

You know, central heating wasn't common,

and from going around in T-shirts and shorts and flip-flops all day,

you were suddenly in itchy, jaggy jumpers,

and big, thick leather shoes,

and everything was itchy and cold and horrid.

For Joey, it was the end of an era,

and the start of a very different life.

I certainly feel as if my life in India was

a bit like living a life in colour,

and then coming back to Britain

was like living a life in black and white.

Joey has mixed feelings to hear that she's inherited money

from a relative who lived out her life in care.

It's not been wholly happy, and I sort of want to do something

nice with it, with my family, to raise a glass to Mae.

To raise a glass to her memory,

to talk about people who perhaps don't have families.

Just, you know, the pleasure of family, that I don't think she had.

In Dundee, Joey's brother, Donald,

was also unsettled to find out that he had a family member

that lived so close but that he knew nothing about.

How did it happen that somebody relatively close just disappeared

off the family trail?

Donald would now like to find out a little more about Mae,

and he's going to pay a visit to the care home

where she spent her last days.

The people that we're going to meet are the professional carers...

..and if you didn't have people like that,

it would be a very sorry world indeed,

because they job they do is absolutely fantastic.

It would be nice to meet them, just to get the chance to say hello

and to say thank you.

Donald's travelled an hour north of Dundee

to meet with carers Eleanor and Lynne.

It's an emotional moment.

Since we found out about Mae,

a whole number of thoughts have come into my mind, certainly.

The need to find out more about a close relation,

and there's somehow a feeling that we've missed something,

because we didn't know about her.

Hello, ladies. You're Eleanor?

-I'm Eleanor.

-Hello, Eleanor. And...?

-I'm Lynne.

-Hello, Lynne. Nice to meet you. I am Donald Hutchinson.

-Have a seat.

-Thank you.

Mae was a popular resident in the care home.

She was a very big part of Bearehill.

She was quite a character. So, everybody knew her.

Everybody that came into Bearehill on a regular basis

would speak to her and say, "Hello, Mae," and, "How are you today?"

And she just loved it.

She just loved attention, and she was just such a nice lady.

Mae was obviously well loved,

and Donald is amazed at just how far the staff went for Mae.

Mae went into Ninewells, and I went in to visit her twice a week,

travelled 30 miles to go and visit her, because I was very fond of Mae.

Although Mae passed away in 2009,

her personality left its mark at the care home.

She would on occasion sit in the chairs in the entrance hall,

which is quite grand, because it is an old building, at the front,

and for a good while after she died,

you'd go to through to that part and you'd look in the chair

-and Mae wasn't there. So she did leave a big hole, if you like.

-Yes.

It's a comfort for Donald that Eleanor took charge of Mae's burial.

As soon as I saw it, I knew that that was the stone

that we wanted for her.

We wanted something that celebrated Charlie's life as well as Mae,

because there was no stone on the grave before,

so it brought the two of them together.

I think it was lovely, and thank you for doing that.

It was the least I could do. She was a lovely lady.

We were under the impression that Mae never had any family,

and I know Lynne would back me up here

that she would have loved to have family of her very own.

-And oddly, not too far away.

-That's right.

Only 30 miles away, and neither of us knew the other existed.

-Which is very sad.

-It is sad.

Mae might have lived her life without family contact,

but she wasn't alone,

and her cousin Donald is profoundly grateful.

Despite any disability she might have had, she really had a good life,

and particularly, I would have thought, at the end of her life.

The conditions that you had created to look after her

were absolutely ideal, and she's no longer with us,

but she was happy when she was, and was very well looked after,

from what I can understand.

I and the family are delighted, and I'm personally delighted

to have met you both, to get the chance to say thank you to you both.

'It's been great. It's been lovely to meet the carers.'

These are dedicated and wonderful professionals,

and we can't thank them enough for what they did for Mae

during her time with them.

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