10 October 2020

Albert's 1939-45 War Medal

Bill's further success.

Albert’s 1939-1945 War Medal is home.
Last week Robert W had the pleasure of returning it to Albert's daughter Ruth. Unfortunately there is no photo. A slight of hand that was supposed to transfer the photos from an Apple iPhone to a PC, hiccupped. The photo’s then truly went to that great ‘cloud’ in the sky.

So where do we start? Well obviously with Robert, who found the medal. Initially the search started out well, and so it should. Albert, his brother and two sisters were all born before 1919, so their birth details were available via the New South Wales Government’s’ Births, Death and Marriages on line data base. Then it all went a little askew.  One sister ‘vanished’, whether she moved interstate and married or passed away, I can’t say. A search of all available BDM’s and newspapers, failed to find her. His brother Cecil, was a similar story, courtesy of a misspelt surname on a data base. And of course divorce and remarriage changes many things.

But when I finally found Ruth, and we discussed the family details, we were able to answer one of the questions, namely the ‘misspelt name’ but that second sister remained a mystery. Ruth only ever knew of her father having one sister.

Ruth was she can remember last seeing her father’s medals back in 1991-92 or thereabouts. So the obvious question was where they had been till Robert returned this one. It is question I have been asked many times. The answer which I have always offered is “I don’t know, it’s just that I think we’re lucky this medal has been returned”.

The returned medal tally is now 2562.

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