Leslie Loader

When I first received these medals I was really confused by the unit that PTE L. Loader served in. I'll explain that all shortly but almost immediately after I posed the question on the British Medal Forum I had the the unit name deciphered and also two candidates for how L. Loader was.
The first medal that confused me is the BWM with the unit name of 1-36 B.N. RY. BN. I.D.F. This turned out to be the 1-36th Bengal Nagpur Railway Battalion, Indian Defence Force. The second medal is Volunteer Long Service Medal named to B.N. RY. BN, A.F.I. The Bengal Nagpur Railway Battalion was the same information but A.F.I stands for Auxiliary Force (India), the name having changed in the 1920.
It was the Bengal link that gave me the clue I needed to join all the information I had available. One of the candidate names I received from Bart of the BMF was Leslie Mervyn Loader. I found his name in the immigration records having emigrated to Western Australia in 1950 and his place of birth was given as Bengal, India. I had found my man and using the electoral rolls and published death notices I found the names of Leslie's daughter, grand son and great grand children. It took a grand total of 30 minutes to get to that point. The next step, to get me in touch with a family member, took another 5 weeks.
The leads I had didn't result in being able to contact a family member so I revisited the family tree and found the name of Leslie's son and his wife. I simple search of the White Pages gave me the phone number I needed to contact the right person and I'll soon send the medals to Leslie's daughter in law.
Thanks goes to Steve Carter who found the medals and forward then on to me. The returned medal tally is now 2131.