Whiteside/Addison Heir Hunters

Every year, around 300,000 people die in the UK,

and one in three leave no will and no known relatives.

In all the time I knew him, I never saw, apart from carers, I never saw a visitor.

If no relatives come forward to claim their inheritance, their money will go to the Government.

And that's where the heir hunters come in.

They're specialists in tracking down beneficiaries, and informing them of an inheritance,

which can come like a bolt out of the blue.

It was a shock because really it was a dig to my conscience, then.

They face tough competition while working on estates that can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Quite a large valued estate, it's worth between £750,000 and up to potentially £1 million.

-How are you, John?

-How are you, Tommy?

But they can reunite families and long lost relatives.

You're better-looking than your photos!

Above all, it's about giving people news of an unexpected windfall.

Could the heir hunters be knocking at YOUR door?

Coming up -

could the race to track down heirs fall down at the first hurdle?

It's looking at the moment like the majority of them died without issue.

And a cruel twist of fate that led to an untimely death.

He was the last of the family.

He was a lovely boy.

Plus, how you could be entitled to inherit unclaimed estates held by the Treasury.

Could thousands of pounds be heading your way?

It's Tuesday afternoon in central London

and in the offices of Fraser And Fraser,

the heir hunters are busy putting their research skills to work.

-You all right there?

-No, I want something to write with that's...

Right, this job.

Contacted by a friend of Richard Whiteside.

He thinks the estate may be being dealt with, but he's not sure.

Case manager Gareth Langford is about to start work

on a new case believed to be worth in excess of £50,000.

A member of the public called me regarding Richard Singleton Whiteside.

He's not sure whether the estate is being dealt with or not,

so I've advised him that we'll have a look at it and find out.

Richard Whiteside died on 28th December 2012, aged 80,

at his home in Lancashire.

Known as Dick, he was a popular figure in the local farming community.

His friend Alan Watson first met him decades earlier at school.

He was a character, even at school he were a character.

Any way we could get out of lessons, me and Richard, we were there.

If it meant going round with a piece of paper and getting it signed,

or signing it yourself and giving it t'headmaster,

saying you were wanted on t'farm, that was it.

And if Dick wasn't pottering about on his farm, he'd be strutting his stuff at the local dance hall.

I always used to look forward to him going dancing,

and he was always late getting there, but he was a good laugh

when he was dancing, because there was no dance he couldn't do.

He used to come down that track there and we used to look for him every Friday.

David Martin knew Dick for 50 years, and gave the eulogy at his funeral.

The church was packed with local people,

another two travelled from neighbouring counties to pay their respects.

Although he was 80, he had all his faculties about him,

he hadn't got memory loss or anything.

What we miss most about Dick is his sense of humour

and just him being here. Life is a lot duller without him.

He was unique.

And it appears Dick never liked to bother anyone,

even after injuring his hand seven years ago while working on his estate.

He wouldn't let you go near that left hand of his, no.

He kept that out of the way.

I kept trying to tell him to go and get it seen to, but he wouldn't.

He said, "They're not taking my hand off." I don't think they would have took his hand off.

Sadly, his wound became infected, and Dick died of septicaemia.

Even then, his close friends were there to protect his estate.

And when trespassers started hanging around Dick's farmhouse,

they called in the heir hunters to find the rightful beneficiaries of his estate.

We know that the deceased lived at the family farm, they'd been living there for quite some time.

I get the impression generations have been farming the land.

The land itself is obviously not being cared for.

There is a lot of farm equipment that's going missing

so it's obviously attracting a lot of people that neighbours don't want in the area.

Knowing there's a property involved means the estate is all the more valuable.

And the heir hunters must work quickly to beat the competition.

It's something boss Neil always keeps a close eye on.

The bigger cases and the cases with property and things are...

of such importance that we throw everything at them.

We put all of our researchers on them.

And we are determined to solve them.

In the search for heirs, the team already have information to hand from his long-time friends.

They've been able to confirm that Richard was divorced and had no children,

so they are now going back a generation.

We're looking for the marriage of the parents.

Which will be John Whiteside to a Mary something.

Believe it or not, there's two John Whitesides

to Mary something in Garstang within two years of each other.

So, could be either/or.

The team have established that John Whiteside was actually born James Albert Whiteside

and married Mary Ann Tomlinson.

Richard Singleton Whiteside was born to the couple in 1932, in Garstang.

Having confirmed Richard was an only child,

the search needs to extend to the wider family.

Thankfully, Richard's friend has been able to provide the team with some useful information.

What he was able to give me on this side is that Richard had an uncle with the same name,

whose birth I found, and that got me on to the census side,

basically found the census through that bit of information.

We need to get all the census for this family.

And it's not long before they have those crucial documents to hand.

I think I've just gone paper-happy. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...yeah, 7.

And the 1901 Census is actually the only census we've got

with everyone still living at home with their parents.

Equipped with what they believe is correct information from the 1901 Census,

researcher Shannon starts to put the paternal side of the family on the tree.

There is eight stems in total on this side of the tree.

Um, so I'm pretty much drawing up the tree so we can get going on it.

Who's that?

With eight potential stems on one side, this search could take the team a while.

At the moment they all seem to be born in the same area.

Which is obviously good for us, but...

..there is...quite a few of them so it is hard keeping track.

-Can I borrow that a sec?

-Yeah.

She's 18 on there, you...!

I did think that I hadn't checked...

How not to read a census, by Shannon.

Surnames can often be associated with one area,

and on THIS estate that appears to be the case.

The Whiteside name seems to be very much a Fylde, Garstang, Blackpool, Preston sort of name.

Every time we find anything there's always three or four options, always in the same area, so...

If we're lucky we've got them all right,

if not they might be all wrong.

I'm only semi-confident, but there is a Robert Whiteside

marrying in Garstang, which is where everything else seems to happen,

to an Ada.

And if that marriage is correct,

there's eight kids off it.

With the clock ticking, Roger takes case manager Gareth through his findings.

As you appreciate, Robert Whiteside is a fairly common name.

There's only one marriage in Garstang,

which is where he died, to an Ada Walton.

If that is correct they are all children.

Went for the youngest, who died.

But he's got a child with a phone number,

he's in Garstang.

-He's not going to know.

-No.

-I'd get their marriage in.

-We've got their marriage in.

-He's not going to know, I don't think. I'd rather talk to him knowing it's right.

-All right, yeah.

Roger is hoping that the Robert Whiteside he's found

would have been Richard's uncle,

and so his children - or if they've died, THEIR children -

would then be heirs.

This Whiteside is such an area name.

All these deaths I'm happy with, they've all gone in,

so hopefully they're going to have some sort of decent informant on them.

-They were probably all buried in the same cemetery.

-Yeah.

-I know that the deceased is buried next door to his uncle.

-Yeah.

It's a kind of a 50/50 shot. If that marriage is right, I'm quite happy, that's fine.

I had to go for that one, that was the youngest.

-Garstang?

-Yeah, Garstang appealed to me as well.

Gareth has a name and contact number for a potential relative,

but he's not feeling hopeful.

The danger is...

..that he's too distant to know whether he's our family or not.

-Um...

-RINGING TONE

No answer. We're not going to find out whether he knows or not.

I'll go back to Roger.

Frustratingly for the team, there is now nothing more they can do

until crucial birth, death and marriage certificates arrive,

and that means waiting until tomorrow.

The following morning there's an anxious wait.

The search has come in a bit late today so I'm going through them

and then I'm going to hand them out

to the relative cases they relate to.

That's interesting. Something about a death.

-What's his age in that?

-26.

-That doesn't work.

-No.

I think that marriage is wrong.

The researchers work their way through the information

on the birth, death and marriage certificates,

trying to tie in the information with what they already know.

And also to fill in the gaps.

Most of the search has come back correct, which is good,

unfortunately they're not leading to any heirs.

It's looking at the moment like he majority of the stems died without issue.

It's bad news for the team, who have already invested a lot of valuable man hours into solving this case.

With no sign yet of any heirs on the paternal side of the family,

the team are running out of options.

And that is not the only thing troubling Gareth.

The risk on this case has always been that, um,

it is quite likely or possible that we're weeks and weeks behind on this particular estate.

Generally, the job of an heir hunter is to find relatives entitled

to receive a share of an estate

when someone has died without leaving a will.

However, sometimes even if there IS a will, the heir hunters can still be called in,

if that will no longer stands up.

Which is exactly what happened in the case of Florence Addison.

Daniel Curran, boss of London-based probate research firm Finders,

was asked to take up the challenge of finding her heirs.

When the solicitors contacted us on this particular case,

they told us that there had been a will

and we established that it wasn't valid.

Florence left her estate to her grandson, Brian,

and a problem arose because he had actually pre-deceased her.

With the early death of Florence's appointed heir,

it was vital for the team to track down other potential next-of-kin.

Otherwise, the whole of her valuable £350,000 estate

would go to the Government.

93-year-old Florence Addison

died on 8th January 2007 in a hospital near her home in Wigan, Lancashire.

Unfortunately, there are no surviving photographs of Florence,

but Margaret Pollard had known Florence for many years.

They first met at the wedding of Margaret's brother, who married

Florence's daughter, also called Margaret.

I can remember looking at her and thinking she had a lovely, round, childish face.

Uh, she's quite giggly.

I got the impression she loved the attention and the company.

From the information the solicitors have provided,

the team knew that Florence had married Joseph Addison,

and they had adopted a daughter, Margaret Mary,

who gave birth to Florence's grandson and her appointed heir, Brian, in 1960.

Tragedy struck the family in 1999,

when Florence's daughter and only child died of lung disease, aged 61.

Margaret's brother asked her to help break the terrible news to Florence,

who was now 86 years old

and being looked after at home by carers.

When we did give her the news, I mean...

It's a long while ago, so I've got to think back,

but as far as I can recollect,

she was stunned for a minute and then

she couldn't believe it and then she got very emotional, very upset.

But having survived this cruellest of blows,

worse was to come when, six years later,

Florence's beloved grandson and heir to her estate, Brian,

died aged 44 of heart and liver disease, leaving no children.

It was absolutely devastating when he died, I just could not believe it.

He went so quickly and it was so devastating.

Both for me and my sister. Because he was the last of the family.

He was a lovely boy.

Once again, it was Margaret who broke the tragic news to Florence.

it was a very difficult situation, obviously.

I mean, this was an old lady of, what, maybe 91 by then,

and to tell her that her grandson had died,

I think it took a bit of sinking in, really.

For the heir hunters, it was a sad and unusual situation,

but their task was to try

to find relatives from Florence's wider family,

who could inherit her £350,000 estate.

We then had to identify her nearest blood relatives.

Her parents had already passed away,

um, so we then went on to look for siblings.

Florence's parents were James Taylor and Eliza Battersby.

They married in 1891, and Florence was born in 1913,

when her mother was 42, which is very unusual, especially in those days.

She was the youngest of four,

and three of them were mentioned on the 1911 Census.

Florence's siblings or their descendants would be heir

to her estate, so the team began the search

and soon found themselves trawling through Census records.

The 1911 Census gives us a bit more information than previous censuses.

We have the age of the various occupants,

and obviously the names of the children, places of birth,

and the occupations, should they be working or old enough to be working.

As Florence's siblings were all older than her,

it was likely that they'd appear on the Census,

and this could provide vital clues for the team.

The first thing the census revealed was that Florence's father was

a coalminer in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

As regards the local economy,

the Lancashire coalfield

was a very large employer.

At that time there were over 350 coalmines in the north-west,

employing around 90,000-odd men and women.

Florence's sister Mary followed their father

into the mining industry.

By the middle of the 19th century,

women had been banned from working underground,

but that didn't stop them from having vital jobs above ground,

grading the coal.

Mary was listed on the 1911 Census as a pit brow worker,

and it was a very tough job.

It could be very arduous in winter. You would get chapped hands, etc.

Depending on how well covered the screen sheds were,

some of the women at collieries virtually worked in the open air.

They were still kept cheerful, even in the middle of winter.

It was the camaraderie of working amongst a group of fellow workers,

you were all suffering in the same way, so you put a brave face on it.

But brave face or not,

it wasn't just the men underground who had the dangerous jobs.

Women working on the surface also had dangers to face,

and the main one was working close to moving machinery

and the fact that they were wearing shawls

and they would be leaning over, potentially the shawls could be

caught up in open gearing and moving machinery, and died as a result.

As an ex-miner himself,

Alan has nothing but praise for these stalwart, hard-working women.

To me the pit brow women are just as important as the men, really.

They had such distinctive character, especially in the north-west.

There were more pit brow women working in the north-west

than any other coalfields.

People in general should be very proud of the work

that they carried out, with a smile on their face, as well.

Mary was the oldest sibling

and spent much of her adult working life at the mines.

She passed away before Florence, as did her brother, Peter,

and also her other sister, Eliza.

Her older sister died in 1985.

She did marry, but unfortunately she left no children either,

so that particular branch of the family has died out.

So at this point, the only known heirs to Florence's estate

were her brother, son and daughter,

who were already dealing with the solicitors.

If the heir hunters couldn't trace any more beneficiaries,

then the team would lose their commission,

which is generally an agreed percentage of each legacy.

They were pinning all their hopes on the only branch of the family

left for them to hunt down.

The last remaining sibling of Florence was her sister, Eliza,

and if Eliza's line had died out, she hadn't married,

or married and had no children, then the only heirs

would be the two that the solicitors already knew about.

And with a £350,000 estate at stake,

the pressure was on to solve this family mystery.

But could the name they had to search

scupper their chances of success?

I think the main difficulty with this case

was the maiden surname of Florence, which was Taylor.

Um, it's one of the most common surnames in the country.

Heir hunters trace thousands of rightful beneficiaries every year.

But not all cases can be cracked.

There are over 10,000 estates on the Treasury's Bona Vacantia list

that have eluded the heir hunters and remain unsolved.

Cases get put onto the list

once we have made our own enquiries to see if we can trace kin,

and then we upload them onto the website daily.

Today we are focusing on two cases

that have yet to be solved by the heir hunters.

Could you be about to inherit some money from a long-lost relative?

First is the case of Beatrice Mary Bailey,

who died on 9th November 2003, in Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Beatrice was born in Guildford, Surrey, on 10th May 1915,

as Beatrice Mary Parsons.

All that is known about Beatrice is that she died a widow,

at the age of 88, but nothing is known about her husband.

With so little information to go on, tracing Beatrice's relatives has

so far proved impossible.

Could you be related to Beatrice, entitled to a share of her estate,

or do you know anything which could unlock the mystery of her family?

Next, a referral from Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.

Do you have any information that could shed some light

on the case of Zemund Zegula?

Originally from Poland and born on 13th December 1927,

Zemund died on 14th June 2004, aged 76,

in Ryhill, West Yorkshire.

Perhaps someone from his adopted village in West Yorkshire has

a nugget of information that could unlock this case.

Both Beatrice and Zemund's estates remain unclaimed,

and 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 to crack open

the cases of Beatrice Bailey or Zemund Zegula?

Perhaps you could be their next of kin.

If so, you could have thousands of pounds coming your way.

In London, the heir hunters were still trying to trace

heirs to the £350,000 estate of Florence Addison.

The problem was that both Florence's daughter

and grandson had died before her.

The team had to widen the search to see if she'd had any brothers

or sisters, which immediately proved a challenge.

I think the main difficulty with this case

was the maiden surname of Florence,

which was Taylor.

It's one of the most common surnames in the country

so it required some persistent investigation.

Their perseverance eventually paid off.

We found that Florence was the youngest of four,

but all her siblings had died before her.

Having discovered that Florence's older sister Mary had died without leaving children,

the heir hunters' last hope of finding any further beneficiaries

rested with Florence's other sister, Eliza,

who'd married a Herbert Harmsworth in 1919.

We established that Eliza had five children,

searching through the indexes to see if we could find matching

births that related to her marriage to Mr Harmsworth.

The team could sense they were about to crack

the case as they pinpointed one of Eliza's sons.

We managed to track down James and spoke to him

and he did confirm for us that we had found the correct family.

This was terrific news for the team.

James was Florence's nephew and although they had lost touch,

he recalls the impression she had made on him as a child.

She was always smartly dressed

and she always had her hair nicely done

and everything and she was a sort of a bubbly sort of person.

I think she enjoyed life.

Always nice to chat to, she always had a bit of fun and that

and we got on pretty well with her,

the times I did see her.

She only stopped at home really, most of the time

and she didn't drink a lot and she didn't smoke I don't think.

She was quite healthy in a way.

In spite of the many years it had been since James had

seen his aunt, the news of her death took him by surprise.

Well, it did come as a bit of a shock.

When I got this letter saying how much it was it was a bit of a shock.

But it was a nice shock in a way,

but I didn't really know her.

I didn't think she'd have any money of that description, you know.

Having found the right family,

Daniel and the team's research was falling into place.

Having established the names, we then found out that four of the five

were still living.

One of them had passed away in 1996.

This child was Ellen, the second child born to Eliza

and Herbert Harmsworth.

She was born in 1921 and at 19, when the Second World War broke out,

she went to work in one of the most dangerous industries of the day.

During the Second World War, from the end of 1941, both men

and women were conscripted to work to do their bit for the war effort.

The government was aware that women would have family commitments

and a woman's place was still in the home, at least in theory.

So the idea was that they designated two groups of women.

There were mobile women and immobile women.

The immobile women were the ones who had to stay at home

and look after children and had that kind of responsibility.

Mobile women, if you were young and single, well you were

definitely a mobile women and you might well be sent anywhere.

One of the most pressing needs was for people

to work in munitions factories

and Eliza was one of thousands of women who joined the production line.

These factories created the single biggest employment

and had their own sets of dos and don'ts.

When you arrived for your shift at the munitions factory,

the first thing you'd do would be to take off all your valuables

and anything metal, anything risky that might cause a spark.

You'd also have to change your shoes and get your working clothes on.

The days themselves were usually eight-hour shifts with minimal

health and safety regulations, so it wasn't safe work.

Like her aunt Mary's dangerous job at the mines,

Ellen's work could also be fraught with peril.

Making detonators was very dangerous and you'd get an explosion

and quite severe injuries, there were fatalities.

One of the drawbacks to being a munitions worker would be that

you might have quite yellow skin from handling the chemicals.

I've heard reports of women's hair changing colour

because again of the exposure to the chemicals.

It was quite sort of an obvious glow.

However, there were also some perks to the job.

A well-known cosmetics company had a comic strip story

about a "munitions girl", as she was called.

That was in the popular press,

but they also went round the factories

distributing their own brand of cosmetics,

which was really popular, because cosmetics were really hard to get.

There were around 45 munitions factories across the UK,

with the largest employing up to 40,000 people.

The thing about... The whole point of conscripting the adult population

is that that work

was absolutely vital to the war effort.

There wasn't any way of avoiding that.

And of course in producing munitions,

that was specifically essential

to fighting the war.

So in terms of how important the contribution was,

I suppose it's fair to say we wouldn't have won the war

if we hadn't had people working in the munitions factories

and across the whole country.

The team discovered that although Ellen had died she had married twice

and had two sons who would inherit a share of the estate.

One of these was Florence's great-nephew Keith.

Although he'd met Florence only once as a child and has no real memory of her,

his new knowledge of her life has left him with some regret.

I found out since about how she died and how she lived

and she ended up on her own

and I feel very sorry about her.

It must have been terrible for her to lose all her family

and end up on her own

when she had family in another town which would have helped her if they knew.

For company boss Daniel and the team,

their research was now complete.

All in all, there were eight heirs to the estate, six nephews and nieces

and two great-nephews, who all received a share of the estate.

James's brother Bert, also a beneficiary, has fond

childhood memories of his aunt Florence.

I remember her as being, today you'd call her petite.

She was well dressed,

a very smart lady, but the one thing I did notice

she wore make-up and she used to wear rouge on her cheeks.

And she always reminded me, um...

of a lovely little doll.

She was easy to get along with.

Always plenty to say and her movements were sharp and quick.

Bert was also surprised by news of an inheritance.

It was a shock as well, because really,

it was a dig to my conscience then, because I was going to make

an inheritance from someone who I'd totally lost touch with

completely and I thought well, I wish now that I'd gone to see her

occasionally, but that's the way, you know...

That's the way it happens.

With all the heirs contacted, Daniel and the team can close the file.

It's always good to know we've traced the correct heirs.

This family was quite difficult, being a Taylor family.

It's quite satisfying to piece together all the various

family members and their relationships

and prove that the entitled heirs were the correct ones

for the solicitors to pay out the estate to.

And for Bert,

he has no doubt that his aunt would have been pleased at his legacy.

I would think so, because...

as far as I remember, she was really kind.

I don't remember her ever giving me anything,

but I think she must have treated me when I went as a lad. You know?

And she was the type of person that would rather it go to her family.

Oh, yeah.

Heir hunters searching for beneficiaries to the

estimated £50,000 estate of Richard Whiteside have already

discounted the paternal side of the family,

so need to turn their attention to the maternal heirs.

Researchers Jess and Shannon are on the case.

We finally got onto the mother's side,

the Tomlinson side, and we're just trying to get something up to date on it now.

-Who are you after?

-George.

-Just Thomas George?

-Yes.

INDISTINCT

Yeah.

That's mine, so...

We've got the deceased parents' marriage back and that gave us

Mary, who is the deceased's mother.

Her father's name. We've managed to find the censuses through that.

The team have managed to establish that Richard's mother Mary was

one of nine children, born to Walter Tomlinson and Margaret Morrow.

If they can trace any children of her eight siblings,

they would be cousins and heirs to Richard's estate.

And soon, it looks as if they have a breakthrough.

So we've got an address on Whiteside. Um...

Which is going to be maternal cousin of the deceased.

The tree is actually quite long.

Ever conscious of the threat of rival firms getting to

heirs before they do, Gareth wastes no time in contacting this

potential beneficiary.

The reason we're contacting your wife is we're currently investigating

an estate matter that involves the Tomlinson family.

We're in the process of locating all of the descendants

of your wife's grandparents.

Thank you, bye-bye.

She's got quite a lot of good information about her uncles

and aunts - that's brilliant,

because there's quite a few of them, they've got common names, we're

going to struggle a little bit in some aspects of this case.

At the moment, there's no sign of competition, but that can change at

any moment, so we need to get letters out to them as soon as possible.

I'm sure they'll be happy for us to act for them.

With one heir contacted, the team now have more information to hand

to help complete the remaining stems.

OK, so that's them sorted.

Finally, the pieces of the jigsaw appear to be falling into place.

Um...

She couldn't remember if he had children or not

and she thought there was only two of them. Maybe.

Sarah, yes.

Darryl dead, she believes. She doesn't have any particular details.

If she thinks about it, she'll have this information,

but just put on the spot... Someone married a Valentine.

Margaret married a Valentine, had one or two children.

Suddenly, with so much more to investigate,

Gareth has called in travelling researcher Charlie Lemon to

be on hand and ready to go and visit some potential heirs.

It's really hectic today. I'm actually breaking into a sweat.

Hi, Charlie, it's Gareth.

We're updating the tree so if you want to hang around there

for 10 or 15 minutes, maybe get a cup of coffee or something,

we might have some more addresses in the area.

Travelling researchers are an important part of the

heir-hunting team, especially when competition could be

hot on your heels and time is of the essence.

Thanks to new information, the team has been able to establish

that five of Richard's paternal aunts and uncles went on to have

children, giving the heir hunters a whopping 26 first cousins to find.

Is a game of two halves, really.

Some aspects of it have worked out really well and other aspects,

we're struggling with a bit.

Basically, the tree is getting bigger all the time.

The team have been struggling with the stem of Mary's sister, Margaret.

But when they learned that she married a Samuel Valentine,

they discover that she had eight children, including Frank.

It's now nearly four weeks

since the heir hunters completed their search and Frank is reflecting

on the surprise at being contacted about a mystery inheritance.

When I answered the phone this day, I'd had

so many nuisance calls that I just said, "Oh,

"this kind of conversation makes me feel ill, I'll have to finish now".

So be very careful when you answer the phone!

It could be a fortune on the other end! Or not!

Frank has very few memories of Richard.

I only saw Richard once and he was quite young.

Richard was two years older than me,

so I must've been quite small when I saw him

and I don't even remember what he looked like.

All I can see is this boy standing by Aunt Mary

and that sadly is all I know about Richard.

But Frank's brother had visited Richard at home on the farm

and had painted a picture for him.

My brother told me that he had loads of rabbits,

show rabbits and as far as my brother Bill remembers,

all the certificates were on the wall

and he had this big shed with the rabbits in and all the awards.

He won quite a lot of awards, for all kinds of varieties of rabbits.

Frank has no particular expectations concerning his legacy.

I've got my pension and I get by each week and it would be very

nice if I had some extra money, I suppose.

I talked about it with my sister in Australia

because we're very close and said, "Well, if it's a fiver,

"I'll be very happy and if it's a tenner I'll be happier", so!

What's that Doris Day song? Che Sera?

Che Sera - that's it. Whatever will be, will be.

In the end, Frank was one of 34 heirs who were traced

and signed up by the company, who will begin the long

process of helping them all submit their claim to the estate.

But for Frank, a new journey is now beginning.

Becoming an heir has sparked Frank's interest in his wider family

and so today, he's on his way to meet with Richard's friends

David and Alan to find out more about his cousin.

I'm looking forward to it very much.

I'm sure with them being so good at inviting us that they

must have quite some tales to tell us!

Some very interesting tales, I would imagine,

being all lads together and...

I'm looking forward to it very much.

-Hello!

-Hello.

-Frank?

-Pleased to meet you... Valentine.

Frank Valentine, right. David Martin.

Meeting Richard's friends is a chance for Frank to

get to know his cousin through the eyes of some of the people

who had been closest to him.

And it's clear that Richard is remembered very fondly indeed.

Even though he was a very clever man, he dressed like a tramp.

-He wouldn't spend any money on clothes.

-No.

I wrote in that eulogy that we did for him

at his funeral that everybody said to us

how smart he looked at the dance he'd been to on Wednesday night, but he

told us later that he had bought the whole outfit - the shirt and

the suit - on a car boot the previous Sunday for £1.50!

And Richard clearly had his own way of dealing with authority.

That was Dick, years ago.

He has a lot of old stuff in the nettles, all lying in the nettles.

There was a rumour that DEFRA, the country people,

-were going to stop you keeping old machinery.

-Yeah.

They were going to make you get rid of it.

Somebody said to Dick, "What are you going to do, Dick?

"With all that clutter of yours?"

He said, "I'm going to grow a bigger strain of nettle,

"so no-one can see it!"

LAUGHTER

Such memories we have, you know.

We could write a book amongst us that knew him, we could write a book.

A lot of it would have to be edited, but...

-LAUGHTER

-That's it, yeah!

what a super man.

You know, I keep looking down the track every Friday for him coming.

I thought, "You silly devil, he's not coming".

But that's the sort of effect he had on people.

It was approximately seven years ago that Richard had a fateful

accident on the farm.

A brush broke and the sharp end went in his hand, through here.

Uh-huh.

Anybody else would have gone to the doctor's or hospital, not Dick.

He would mend it himself. Pouring all kinds of potions onto it.

We kept telling him and telling him, didn't we?

"Go and..."

He used to get mad, he wouldn't do anything that he didn't want to do.

Two years ago, he went into hospital and they were going to take his hand

off to save his life and he wouldn't have that, he discharged himself.

Then at Christmas, he collapsed.

They took him into hospital. The day after, he died while I was there.

He was talking about next year's hay time while he was slipping away.

-Was he, indeed?

-Oh, yes. It was very, very sad.

I mean, we feel deprived in a way,

we could have had another 20 years of entertainment!

But he was absolutely a lovely, lovely man.

I've never heard anybody say a bad word about Dick Whiteside, never.

For Frank, this meeting has given him

a precious insight into the cousin he never knew.

You've enlightened me as to what he was like.

Half my cousins are dead, so they'll never know, will they?

But I've had the privilege of hearing about him, which is

absolutely wonderful, really.

And after learning so much more about Richard's life,

Frank takes the opportunity to pay his respects.

Dick doesn't know it, but his cousin Frank is here,

looking at his gravestone.

I thought it would have been sad, but it isn't. I feel good inside.

I'm pleased I've come.

So...

I know where it is, now, so, er...

It's nice, though. Very nice.