Martin/Bishop Heir Hunters

Heir Hunters specialise in tracking missing family members

who are entitled to money from a relative who's died.

I'd definitely ask at the local shops cos she did work at a shop.

Sometimes the deceased simply hasn't left a will.

Sometimes they've become estranged from their family.

I'm just trying my hardest to see if I can see a family resemblance.

The race is then on for Heir Hunters

to find the often distant relatives in line for a windfall.

Basically, we're half-Jewish and we didn't know.

But this is a highly competitive arena...

I hope there's not going to be competition,

but, erm, you never know.

..with dozens of firms hoping to pip the others at the post

to sign up heirs and claim their commission...

Just see if you can find...

..and hand over tens of thousands of pounds

to unexpecting beneficiaries.

Could the Heir Hunters be knocking at your door?

Coming up, the Heir Hunters take on a risky case...

We thought it might be quite high in value.

Er, I'm not so sure now.

..that also proves complicated.

'He doesn't know much about his father's family

'and can't confirm everything.'

And how the sad death of a brother reunites four members

of a family who never knew each other existed.

He had been looking for his family for 50 years.

-Hello, John.

-How are you, Tony?

-I'm very well, thank you.

Plus, could you be entitled to inherit unclaimed estates

held by the Treasury?

Could a fortune be heading your way?

It's another working day in London,

and the Heir Hunters at Fraser & Fraser

are looking into several new cases.

We'll look and see if there's a probate for him.

-There's no sign of her being the informer?

-No.

Well, I think we've got his death in 1991.

Why do none of these numbers ever work?

Case manager Simon Mills has picked up a job from the Treasury's

bona vacantia list.

The only neighbour that was there at the time wasn't answering the phone.

And it's an estate thought to be worth around £200,000.

Got a new case, Marjorie Gladys Martin,

she died in 2006, so quite a few years ago.

Looks like she owned her property.

Martin's not the best name to work with,

so it might take a little while, but, erm, we'll see where we get.

Marjorie Gladys Martin died a spinster

on the 15th September 2006 in Poole in Dorset.

Barbara and Bill Price were her neighbours for ten years.

When we moved into this street,

Marjorie already lived here a couple of doors away.

We didn't see a great deal of her.

She was a very, very quiet lady.

She was about five foot four, I should think.

Quite a smart lady when she was out,

obviously coloured her hair.

However, she appeared to lead a very solitary life.

Rarely saw her in the garden, but when she was there,

then she was obviously enjoying the garden.

We never saw any visitors there, not even friends.

I think she was just a very, very quiet person.

She did tell me she'd been rather naughty when she was younger,

but she didn't tell me any more about her life.

With Marjorie's estate believed to be so valuable,

it's a worthwhile case for the Heir Hunters to work.

But there's one area that could be a worry.

There was a property but it was sold in 2007 in January,

so that's after the deceased passed away in 2006.

Just at the moment want to know who authorised the sale,

and whether she actually did own it,

which we think she did. Bit of a concern.

So the team need to focus on finding out

if Marjorie owned or rented the property.

If she rented it, Marjorie's estate could go from being valuable

to virtually worthless.

And any work they put into solving it could be for nothing,

as Heir Hunters get paid on commission,

so the smaller the estate, the smaller their fee.

-You wanted the death?

-No.

-She owned a property...

She owned it? So if she owned it and it was sold, what d'you reckon?

Everybody's passed away?

Despite no confirmation of a property,

Simon's going to start his search.

I'm just trying to find parents' names, see if she's got any siblings.

We think she was, erm, a single lady,

never married by the looks of it, so, just see what we can find.

It's a busy morning, I think quite a few cases came in overnight,

so everybody seems to be snowed under.

There's still a lot of work to be done before they get anywhere

close to solving this case.

This is why I'm confused.

How can there only be four of any surname?

It's too early for this.

And it looks like things are going from bad to worse.

Er, just found the...what looks like the birth record of the deceased.

Rather I didn't, to be honest. Mother's maiden name's Smith.

Martin's a bad enough name as it is.

Mixed with Smith, it's just a bit of a nightmare.

Um... So, it's probably going to be relying heavily on certificates,

unless we get lucky.

Company partner Neil has been working in the business for 15 years

and is all too aware of the importance of certificates,

as they can confirm

whether the research they've done so far is correct.

But it costs money.

We can't afford not to buy them.

One error by not buying a certificate

could mean the difference between a lost case

and signing the beneficiaries.

On an average year, we spend in excess of £150,000

just on birth, death and marriage certificates.

With a common surname and maiden name,

the researchers have their work cut out.

What is going on with this?

There should definitely be more than that, shouldn't there?

Marjorie Martin was born in 1907 in Croydon.

She had never married and had no children.

So, the team is concentrating on looking for any possible siblings.

To do this, they need to find her parents, but it's not that simple.

You've got the date of birth there.

-Is there a Marjorie G, any surname?

-No, look.

With such common names, the team urgently needs the certificates

to ensure they're dealing with the correct family.

Simon wants some help on the ground, so he's calling Bob Barrett,

one of a fleet of travelling researchers.

Hi, Bob. Mother's maiden name, unfortunately enough, is Smith.

Which is why I need the birth certificate.

There were three possible marriages

sort of within a ten-year gap of the...of the birth.

So, I just need to find out which one of them it is.

OK, cheers, Bob. Thanks.

Bob's job out on the road

is to act quickly on behalf of the team back in the office.

He will pick up certificates,

carry out door-to-door enquiries and, ultimately, sign up heirs.

Hello, sorry to be a nuisance. I wonder whether you can help me.

We're trying to find out something

about a gentleman that used to live in number 25.

Bob's job is a bit of a contrast to his old beat.

I thoroughly enjoyed being in the police. The...

But I was very aware towards the end that the wrong side of 50

is too old for some of the things you need to do as a police officer.

Because it really isn't an old man's job.

Whereas this is.

Back in the office, more researchers have been pulled onto the case

to keep ahead of the competition.

The teams are looking into the possible marriage

of a Smith in Croydon around the time of Marjorie's birth.

-Take any surname.

-There's no marriage, though.

What they can't do is focus on one particular Smith

until they're 100% certain,

because if it turns out to be incorrect,

they'll be straight back to square one.

Once we get the birth certificate, first and foremost,

hopefully confirm that we've got the right birth, and then, secondly,

it'll give us the parents' names and we can work the case up.

And Marjorie's property still remains a worry.

I was told that the deceased owned the property.

Problem being, she died in 2006 and the property was sold in 2007.

But we don't know at this stage, so we've got to carry on working it.

But then case manager Jo gets confirmation about the house.

It was sold after she died and she's never mentioned on the deeds, so...

She rented it, didn't she?

This is potentially very bad news for the team.

If she only rented the property,

the value of her estate could be much lower than they'd thought.

The interesting thing here is it says it was sold for 220.

But I...

On...one of the house pricing things, it said it sold for 177.

The end of the first day of research is drawing to a close

and, with competition likely to be breathing down their necks,

it's a frustrating end for Simon.

Martin's been a confusing case today. At the end of the day,

we've not really got any further than we were at the start.

We've ordered the birth and death certificates,

they should be with us in the morning, and see where we go.

But as the team continue working this case,

will they get the answers they desperately need?

Hopefully, if this gentleman's in, he can tell me more.

Finding heirs to an estate is not always the end of the case.

You've got to provide enough evidence to the Treasury Solicitors

for them to accept the claim.

Someone wishing to submit a claim to us

will need to supply us with documentary evidence

to support that claim.

That would usually be birth, marriage and death certificates

that show how they're related to the deceased.

When the case of Archie Bishop

landed on the desk of heir hunter Phil,

providing evidence was almost as hard as tracing the heirs.

At the beginning of this case,

I didn't think there was much hope of solving it,

and then it's not an easy route to solve these things.

Alexander Bishop, also known as Archie,

died aged 80 in a care home in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset.

His estate was estimated to be worth just over £19,000,

but the company still felt it was a case worth looking into.

Because Archie died without leaving a will,

his estate was advertised by the Treasury Solicitor

and snapped up by Phil, who is a senior associate at Celtic Research.

I'd like to order a death certificate

for Alexander Raymond Bishop.

Date of death...

The firm is run by Peter Birchwood,

who's been working in genealogy research for 40 years,

and his son, Hector.

Phil is based in Newport, working alongside his wife and son.

The reason I picked up the case is because that it was in my area,

Burnham-on-Sea.

Initially, I couldn't find any value to it.

It was likely that any monies would just be a small pension.

Phil's initial research found that Archie died a bachelor,

so if there WERE any heirs,

they would be his brothers and sisters,

or THEIR children or cousins.

So, Phil turned his attention to Archie's mother,

Phyllis Mary Bishop, who was born in 1916 in Wareham, Dorset.

I could tell from the index that his mother's name was also Bishop,

so it was likely he was illegitimate.

Phil sent off for Archie's birth certificate

to see if there was a father named.

When he received the document through the post,

it proved his hunch was correct.

When it's an illegitimate birth, most times,

that's the end of the story, because you're not likely

to be able to match any other births to the same mother.

There's nothing to go on to prove it.

Phil needed to find out if Archie had any siblings,

including half-brothers and sisters, so he took a punt,

hoping that Phyllis had married at some point in her life.

I'd found this marriage of Phyllis Mary Bishop to Edward Harrison

in the area where Alex had been born.

So, I thought, right, this looks good,

I'll work it down to a living relative

and check to see if they are the same family or not.

Phyllis Mary Bishop married Edward Harrison in 1936.

He was a private in the 1st Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment

and, at the age of 24, was sent overseas to fight in World War II.

The battalion was stationed in Hong Kong

and, generally speaking,

the quality of life for soldiers in Hong Kong was quite good,

because the cost of living was quite low.

So, soldiers' wages went quite a long way.

However, on the other side,

you had quite a lot of tropical diseases that soldiers suffered from,

so it was a mixed bag.

But for the young Edward, the war was about to take a nasty twist.

The Japanese attacked the harbour

that Edward's battalion was protecting

and he was taken as prisoner of war.

All of the prisoners of war from the Hong Kong region

were sent to Sham Shui Po Barracks, which were a former military barracks

that had been looted by the Chinese in the panic of the invasion

and had been stripped bare of absolutely anything.

Once captured, Edward would have been transported to mainland Japan.

Where they would work for major Japanese corporations

and do work such as in sugar factories or metalwork

or farming or loading and unloading of barges.

They were expected to essentially be slave labour for the Japanese army.

But things were about to get even worse.

Edward was sent to Japan on a boat called the Lisbon Maru.

On the way, it was hit by a torpedo

and Edward and his fellow prisoners were abandoned on board.

After approximately a day of being trapped,

one of the soldiers had smuggled a butcher's knife on board

and eventually, through perseverance,

they were able to cut a large enough hole in the canvas

that a couple of the soldiers were able to actually crawl out.

So, all of the men tried to make an escape bid.

Many of them jumped overboard and were fired upon in the water.

The current swept them towards the Sing Pan Islands,

which were Chinese islands.

Some people were dashed against the rocks and, therefore, didn't survive.

But some of the prisoners of war were able to get to the island.

In a way, Edward was one of the lucky ones and survived.

However, he was soon rounded up by the Japanese

and taken to the mainland.

Tragically, Edward died two weeks later.

Edward Harrison is now buried,

along with 1,500 of his fellow soldiers,

in the Yokohama War Cemetery,

which was built to honour soldiers from Commonwealth countries.

At just 26 years of age, Phyllis was now a widow,

and heir hunter Phil had discovered when Edward went off to war,

he and Phyllis had already had two children, Barbara and Tony.

I'd found a son, Tony Harrison, told him the story, and he said,

"Yes, he was the brother of Alex Bishop."

He rang me up and said, "We are the heir hunters."

I said, "Well, I think you've got the wrong number.

"I don't have any hair. I'm bald."

Although Tony didn't know Archie,

he confirmed he was the child of Phyllis and Edward Harrison.

My mother couldn't look after me,

so I went into a nursery at a very early age.

I have no real memories of my mother at all.

Just a vague...vague reminiscence of being parted from her.

As a young widow, Phyllis may have felt

she had no other option than to put her children in care.

Tony grew up thinking he was an only child,

but aged ten, he was told he had a sister.

My first introduction with Barbara was...

oh, very nice to have a sister, you know, family, a member of family.

Barbara was just two years older than Tony

and she'd also been put into care as a baby.

The fact that we were segregated, I saw very little of her.

I don't ever remember wanting to go and play with her or anything,

because the system didn't allow it.

Tony kept in touch with his sister by phone,

but never saw her again until much later on in life.

And, as far as Tony was aware,

Barbara was his only sibling and his only real family member.

That was until, one day, he was paid a surprise visit.

When my grandmother first came to see me,

I was surprised at her appearance,

that she reminded me of an old...um...

..comedian called Old Mother Riley.

She had a fox fur on and wore a hat and she was quite small,

as I was quite... towered over her.

His grandmother's visit gave Tony a precious opportunity

to start to find out more about his mother and the rest of his family.

She said Mother was in hospital

and that my father had got killed in the war, and that...

..that I had two half-brothers.

That was the one and only time that I saw my grandmother.

So...

I used to communicate with her by letter occasionally,

but otherwise, I never saw her again.

Phyllis was a widow at just 26 years of age

and Archie, Barbara and Tony were all in care.

Being so young, Phyllis potentially could have gone on

to have more children, therefore more heirs for Phil to find.

After that, I then found the death of another brother, Dennis.

Every year, the heir hunters manage to crack the majority of their cases

and track down heirs to unclaimed estates.

However, there are always a few that elude them

and stay on the Treasury Solicitor's bona vacantia list,

a file of unclaimed holdings.

The money raised by the Bona Vacantia Division

is passed to Her Majesty's Treasury, and if a claim's made within 12 years

to an estate on the unclaimed list, for example,

then we pay that money back out again.

Today, we have details of two unclaimed estates

where heirs are yet to be found.

Do you have any information

that could help solve either of these cases?

The first one is that of a lady called Delores DeVilliers.

She died a spinster on January 8th, 2006,

in Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

It's believed that Dolores may also have been known as Betty

and she possibly changed her surname to Wilson.

The only other information known

is that she was originally from Australia,

born there on October 12th, 1914.

Does any of this sound familiar? Did you know Delores?

Our second case is that of Hilda Joan Baker.

She died on November 6th, 2003, in Minehead, Somerset.

However, she was born in the north of England, in Sheffield,

just weeks before the end of the First World War,

on October 22nd, 1918.

Was Hilda a friend of yours? Or maybe even a relative?

If no-one comes forward, their money will go to the Government.

The money raised by the Bona Vacantia Division

is passed annually to the Treasury

and it goes into the consolidated fund,

therefore to benefit the country as a whole.

Do you have any clues that could help solve these cases?

Or maybe you believe you're related to one of the women

and, potentially, could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

Case manager Simon Mills is looking into

the case of Marjory Martin who died in September 2006,

leaving an unclaimed estate potentially worth over £200,000.

What is going on with this? There should definitely be more than that.

Yesterday had been a frustrating start for Simon and his team,

and today it doesn't look set to improve as they have just received

the disappointing news that Marjory Martin didn't own her property.

When we started the case, we thought that it might be quite high in value.

I'm not so sure now.

It's discouraging news, as even though they have no idea

how much it's worth in total, they suspect it may be quite low value

and that means the fees they earn will be significantly lower.

For boss Neil, this is an inherent risk of the heir-hunting business.

The bigger cases are of such importance

that we throw everything at them. We put all our researchers on them.

We do the smaller cases, hoping for them to pay the bills really,

to just tick us by.

So with this estate now just looking like a bread-and-butter case,

a number of researchers have been pulled off the job

whilst the rest concentrate on finding heirs on the maternal side.

Even though we don't know the potential value of the case,

we are going to work it, the problem being that it's Smith,

so we don't want to put all our resources onto it

if there is not going to be any funds in the estate because...

Just because it's time-consuming.

But they are hoping the certificates they ordered yesterday

will give them a lead and confirm the family.

If we find out who the parents are...

..find the marriage and then do,

like, ten years after the marriage or something like that.

And they are only moments from finding out

as the certificates arrive.

Just ticking off all the certs as they come in.

We've got loads of certs coming in today

because of all the jobs that came out yesterday.

Erm...

A lot of priority certs will come back today,

ordered yesterday, come back today.

Obviously a lot more expensive.

And the certificates have confirmed

that one of the marriages they have found is correct.

It was the correct birth we identified,

which is the first positive. Obviously, it gives us

the name of the parents as Edwin Stephen Martin and Lily Smith.

From that, we have obviously been able to find

the marriage of the parents, and therefore it gives us

a better opportunity to look for siblings that are deceased.

Finally, the team has confirmed Marjory

was the daughter of Edwin Stephen Martin and Lily Smith.

Edwin and Lily married in 1919, but he tragically died aged just 27.

We got a death record for Edwin in 1940,

said that he died at the Carshalton War Memorial Hospital.

He was a commissionaire at a factory.

But the place where Edwin worked was no ordinary factory.

The Bourjois factory, owned by the French perfumer Chanel,

opened in 1918,

and was just one of the many international companies

that wanted their base to be in South London.

When Croydon Aerodrome was blitzed in August 1940,

the Bourjois factory was razed to the ground.

The factory, then, was rebuilt and so, by the end of the 1940s,

production was restored once more.

Edwin may have gone,

but he was certainly not forgotten

as he would have been the welcoming face to all who visited the factory,

as he was the commissionaire.

I think it's very difficult to imagine the excitement

that I'm sure most people would have felt,

meeting a commissionaire at the door of a perfumery company.

This person would have been your first contact

who would welcome you into a world which would have seemed so exotic

and far removed from the everyday.

Croydon maybe seems the most unlikely place in one way,

maybe, for perfume production,

but I think it's really, really important to remember

the name Croydon itself comes from the Anglo-Saxon "croh denu",

which means "crocus valley".

It's where saffron was grown, like in Saffron Walden.

By 1500, we have really, really well-established fields

of lavender around Mitcham,

so this area was very, very famous for lavender production.

So I think that,

when the French houses looked at where they could make,

to save shipping, perfume, England was an obvious place,

and in England, Croydon the most obvious of all.

During World War II, over 2,500 bombs fell on Croydon,

with businesses, factories and streets being ripped apart,

including the world-famous Bourjois factory.

180 workers were injured and 60 killed outright,

and Edwin was one of those workers.

Back on the case, the team's research into Marjory's siblings

was leaping ahead, with a possible brother identified.

There was an Edwin Charles Martin, Edwin being the father's name,

we thought there was a good chance that that was correct.

The certificate has come back and it looks like it is.

Searches on brother Edwin reveal he died in 1963.

However, the team believes he married and had a son, Keith.

We've identified a possible nephew of the deceased.

We'd like to find his address first and foremost

and send someone to see him.

They might have already dealt with the estate,

but we will only know when we finally do get to speak to them.

And once they have spoken to their lead on the phone,

things are looking positive as it's definitely the correct family.

However, Simon needs to get a bit more clarification.

He doesn't know much about his father's family,

he can't confirm everything.

So, while Simon awaits confirmation,

he calls up travelling researcher Bob

to start heading over to where the heir lives.

I said that you would give him a call first to arrange that.

So, as Bob hot wheels it over to see one of the heirs,

ever the detective ex-policeman Bob Barrett can't help wondering

why this case hasn't been solved earlier.

She died in 2006, which is a bit unusual

to think her estate has been

kicking around for six or seven years, so...

Either there has been some sort of legal wrangle over her estate,

or perhaps there is some new asset that has come to light

that wasn't known...

that wasn't known of when she died.

Hopefully, if this gentleman is in, he can tell me more.

Back in the office,

the team has managed to track down one of Marjory's brothers.

However, there is a slight confusion on the name.

We have been told that there is a brother Stanley.

However, there is no birth for Stanley Martin.

The mother's maiden name is Smith, so it would be the correct area.

There is a Reginald S Martin, so I'm thinking, hopefully,

his middle name might be Stanley.

Ah! I'm so good at my job!

So, erm, the birth of Reginald S Martin in March '23 in Croydon,

this Reginald has passed away in 2002 and he is Stanley Martin,

so that makes him correct.

So the next step for this stem would be to find out

if Reginald did have children and was married and if he did indeed,

then that means that they would be entitled as nieces and nephews.

Emily is on a roll and she soon finds more potential heirs.

There is a marriage for Reginald S Martin in Croydon,

which is the right area.

It's to a Dora Bisset.

So the next step now is to find out if they had children.

While Emily is making good progress,

Bob is not having so much luck finding Marjory's nephew.

Unfortunately, nobody in.

I will leave him a letter, I think, and then, if he wants,

he can get in touch with us.

As Bob gets back on the road, back in the office,

Emily's success continues.

I have...

..a phone number for you. For the niece. That's going to be Stanley.

It's Reginald Stanley.

I did another little tree cos I couldn't really fit it on.

Emily has found the number for one of Marjory's nieces,

so another heir.

We've been researching the estate of Marjory Martin,

who I believe may have been an aunt of yours?

We're just trying...

However, just like the nephew, this niece is not too sure about

her grandparents and has asked Simon to talk to another family member.

What I'll do, then, is

I'll find out if he can confirm whether we've got the right family.

Simon does speak to another family member

and finally gets the confirmation he needs.

Thanks very much. Thank you.

And in total,

they find five heirs to Marjory's estate who all agree a percentage

of the legacy to go to the company for acting on their behalf.

All right. Thanks very much. Thank you. Bye.

One of the heirs is Keith, the son of Marjory's brother Edwin.

The whole thing is a complete surprise, a complete shock,

because as far as I'm concerned there wasn't anybody at all alive.

I don't know Marjory Martin, my auntie.

If she showed me a photograph

of my grandparents on my father's side, I wouldn't know them.

I certainly wouldn't know Marjory Martin.

And his inheritance is a welcome surprise.

I'm actually looking to move house to the Reigate area...shortly,

and any money that I receive from this,

obviously I'd be very grateful for it, and it's come at the right time.

It's also a good result for heir hunter Neil and his team.

We've got the beneficiaries, we've got them signed,

so we can proceed from here.

Heir hunter Phil was on the case of finding heirs to the estate

of Alexander or Archie Bishop who'd died in a care home in January 2013.

Archie had never married or had any children,

so Phil was looking for his brothers and sisters or their children,

who would be beneficiaries to his £19,000 estate.

Archie was illegitimate,

so Phil could only look into his maternal side.

He had already discovered two heirs -

Archie's half brother and sister.

Phil had a suspicion that Archie's mum Phyllis may have had more

than three children.

His hunch was proved correct

when he discovered another potential sibling called Dennis.

Dennis sadly passed away in 1994, but he had two children,

so his share of Archie's estate automatically passes to them.

Having found Dennis, Phil thought he'd now found

all of Phyllis's children, but then he got a surprise.

Tony's sister Barbara had had a daughter who called Phil

and told him that after Phyllis's husband Edward had died,

she'd gone on to have more children.

Her daughter phoned me up, she gave me the details of three children -

a son John, a daughter Pamela and another son that was a possible.

One of them was John and the news came as a bolt out of the blue.

I sort of just froze. It felt unbelievable.

I didn't know about any other brothers or sisters whatever.

You go through life and you think

you'll never ever be found by anybody,

or nobody will be looking for you regarding a family.

It was literally a real emotional shock.

We couldn't get over it.

Phil then had to track down Pamela

and possibly one other child of Phyllis.

On a Sunday afternoon, my phone beeped

and I had a text from Pamela Harrison.

Just like her two brothers and sister, Pamela was also brought up

in care, but, at the age of four, she was taken in by a foster family.

I've known nothing about any of my half brothers and sisters.

I remember when I was about to leave my foster parents,

there was something written down on a piece of paper that

I had a grandmother and I have brothers and sisters.

At that time, it was sort of a bit of shock

and I didn't really take it too seriously.

She now lives in the New Forest area,

close to her place of birth, Lymington.

She was slightly overwhelmed when Phil got in touch.

Bit of a shock that all this has come up and, to me,

it seems quite sad, in some respects,

that we were split up as youngsters.

I've just moved into Southampton to come back to my roots

and thinking, "Why? This is too much.

"Is this just the beginning of my life of adventure?"

Until Phil got in touch,

Pamela knew nothing of half brothers and sister.

Apart from John whom she met through a friend at school.

She introduced me to him. I looked at him and we looked so much alike.

Same eyes, same sort of colouring. He said, "You must be my sister."

I said, "He must be my brother."

We looked at each other and I said, "Oh, my."

That chance meeting left Pamela with so many questions.

I used to look at myself in the mirror. I used to say, "Who am I?"

I had a mother, I had a father, and I thought I must belong somewhere.

Pamela decided to look for answers

and began to find out about her mother.

She obviously came from a poor background.

She must have been a very upset lady,

a mother having to be split from her children.

And I happened to be one of them.

She probably wasn't able to look after me,

and the authorities obviously took charge of her

and said, "We're going to have to put you into a hospital."

And she was there for quite a while, I gather for about nine years.

It was more like a workhouse, I would say. I visited the place.

It reminded me a bit like Colditz.

Widowed and struggling, Phyllis was admitted to Coldest Medical Colony in 1945.

Nowadays we don't talk about mental deficiency,

but that might have covered people with learning disabilities

and people with mental health problems.

It would have been a collection of houses

and places that people could stay with farmland round about,

with pigs and cows, with occupational therapy.

So it would have been a place where she lived her life in quite

a different way to mental health care that would happen in the modern context.

Conditions that Phyllis would probably have experienced would

have been living in a detached dormitory setting, single sex,

with lots of other women.

It would have been in an area with a lot of land round about.

She would have had the opportunity to take part in daily work

activities and so on.

She would have been quite isolated from the rest of the community

round about, probably.

There could have been 900, 1,500 people,

something like that, living as part of this colony.

It would have felt like quite a big community to her, probably.

Sadly Phyllis died in 1958 at just 38 years of age.

None of her children ever had the chance

to get to know their mother, and the only family member Phyllis

had in her life was her mother Edith,

who came to pick up her belongings from the hospital.

When Phyllis's mother Edith went to the Coldeast Mental Colony

to collect her things, all she was given was a box of handkerchiefs,

a wedding ring, a pair of white shoes.

But what of her eldest son Archie?

Documents indicated that he also suffered from mental health problems

as he was a voluntary patient at the Mendip Hospital in Southampton.

He must have returned to Burnham-On-Sea at some stage,

though, as he died in his care home.

Although we know that Alex went into hospital voluntarily that doesn't

necessarily mean that he volunteered or particularly chose that option.

It might have been that at the time he had reached a certain age

where childhood services were no longer appropriate

and there wasn't any other option at that time but to go into hospital.

It could have been the case that he was voluntarily admitted,

but had he chosen not to do that, he may have been certified.

Having found all of Archie's siblings and heirs,

Phil's research was complete.

He could now begin the often long process of helping them

claim their inheritance.

But for heir hunter Phil,

all the time and effort he put in paid off in more ways than one.

At the beginning of this case,

I didn't think there was much hope of solving it.

I would never have guessed in a million years that it would be

such a story, that they would all be separated at a young age.

The sad story of her husband going to war and dying.

'It's just unbelievable.'

Then to have found them all has made me over the moon.

Phyllis's six children all grew up separately,

and while some of them met or found out about each other later

in life, it's only thanks to the

heir hunters that they now all know about each other.

And today is a very special day indeed as the brothers

are meeting for the very first time in John's hometown of Pembroke.

What I'm looking forward to most is just to meet somebody that you

never thought existed, but did.

And now we can get together as part of a family.

It is like a closure on things

that you'd been wondering all you life.

If they did exist, who were they?

And when you were told they did exist and you hadn't met them,

and as the years go on, it's very surprising that...

You don't want to end your life just wondering.

Over the last few months the brothers have started to get

to know each other by chatting on the phone,

but they've longed for this day.

-Hello, John?

-How are you, Tony?

-Yeah, I'm very well thank you.

-You all right?

-Yes. Fine. Nice to see you.

-And you.

-You're better looking than your photos. You certainly are.

-How nice.

-This is my wife, Iris.

-Hi.

-A new sister-in-law. Lovely.

-Nice to meet you. I've got something to show you.

-What?

-This I took off the internet the other day.

-Right.

-Lymington workhouse where we were both born.

-Oh, my.

They wanted to pull the building down,

but Lymington Society saved it.

-Preservation order, I think.

-Yes.

Grade II listed building.

-Good grief.

-The front is obviously the offices.

-I wonder which room...?

-I'll show you in a minute.

We'll need to order some blue plaques now to get them on the wall.

-Yes.

-"The Harrisons were born here."

-Yeah!

I did feel a sense of relief and a sense of part closure.

-That's how I feel about it.

-That's nice.

-And I'm glad you're looking well.

-Yes, thank you.

-That means more to me than anything, actually.

-How nice.

John then shows Tony photos of his Dad's memorial grave in Yokohama.

Some very nice close-up shots of his tomb.

It looked well-kempt when I saw it on the internet.

That's very nice.

Absolutely wonderful.

I'm glad I met Tony.

I nearly forgot your name then.

THEY LAUGH

And for the first time, they see a picture of their brother Archie,

whose death has brought the family together.

-Yes, the likeness is there.

-Yes.

I should imagine he's late '70s, '80s.

-He's 81 when he passed away.

-He's 81, yes.

-God bless him.

-And his physician assures me that he was a very...

-Yes, you said...

He was a very nice chap - he said he was very pleasant,

never grumbled, unlike me.

There is a clear connection between these two long-lost brothers.

John definitely feels like one of the family.

He seems to have a similar sense of humour as I.

So I'm very pleased about that.

But today is just the beginning for Tony and John.

What I'm looking forward to is meeting the rest of the family.

The ladies, our sisters.

And the future, meeting up again, enjoying a holiday

where we can all be as a family.