Hi,

I know where Grandad's medals are! Well I think I do. They could well beat the family's house in Stockport. I've been considering sending a letter to it. I know the no. of the house and all the rest except the person who lives there and the postcode.

Should I send a letter asking if whoever lives there has seen the medals?

Joe

you've got nothing to lose Joe. Good luck.

Worth a try.

But if it's my house in Stockport, then be prepared for a response along the lines of "and exactly how much money are you prepared to part with, Mr Walsh."

If you have the address, then it's easy to find the postcode (just ring Royal Mail Postcode Enquiries). And you should be able to find who lives there through www.192.com.

John

Hi Joe,

Out of interest why do you think they are there ? And if so, why did your family leave them there ?


Cheers

Tim.

There's your answer. Provide the good Mr Hartley with a letter of introduction and full particulars of the medal recipient. I defy anyone not to co-operate.

There is not your answer. Much as I am prepared to help Pals, blah, blah.......

Joe,

There is a point of law to consider if the family home changed hands. Consulting a solicitor would not do much good here. Some posts have provided good responses to your enquiry. However, it may be worth your while engaging with a representative of the local press and relate your story to coincide with your efforts to retrieve the medals. Then when making your endeavours with the new home owner, you did meet with the how much money are you prepared to pay scenario. The thought of that story being highlighted in the local press would most definitely deter this scenario .

Good luck and go get the medals matey. They're yours. Heads up to you Grandad. Tell us more of him once you get his medals.

I suggest you write a polite letter to the present owner/occupier of the house telling him of your problem and asking for his help. Take it from there. Incidentally, although I am not a lawyer and despite what others have said, I very much doubt if the medals are yours. I hope they very quickly become yours and I wish you luck.

Not a lawyerbut, my understanding of the legality, from experience, would be that if you purchase a property, any goods that remain in or on the property at the time you purchased it would be yours whether or not they formed part of an inventory or were fixtures and fittings.

Writing to the current owner of the property explaining the case would probably be the best place to start.

All this presumes that the medals weren't chucked out, flogged off, lost or given to some other family member.....years ago.

Bit of a long shot thinking that they might have just been left in the attic, innit?

Well, it is a very long shot. I'll post it though I wonder if the mail might think its a terrorist thing. I'll post someday next week not tomorrow.

John, the house is in Bredbury, Stockport, Know it? As a matter of fact Grandad built the house. He built a few othe rbuildings in Stockport, he was a builders foreman.

Polite letter is the way I'm going, just asking if they've seen the medals.

Thanks

Joe

Hi Joe,

I wish you all the luck in the world. If it results in you getting the medals it will be a great outcome.

Cheers

Tim.

Yep. It's the other side of town from where I live

Do you know a Co-Operative Wholesalers Societys building? He built that too, I heard its very handsome, I've never seen it though. I'd like to.

Joe

Good Luck with the letter Joe,
Do lets us all know how you get on, I hope you can one day be the proud owner of Grandad's medals

Hello

why would the mail think a letter is a terrorist thing ? Its Xmas and they will have lots of them

What do you mean ?

ian

Well I dunno wouldn't the post people think its a bit odd to write a letter to an address where you don't know the person who lives there or the postcode?

Just checking.

Joe

Everyone gets mail addressed to "The Occupier".

But I've already suggeste dhow you might find the name of the person who lives there. And the postcode. Even if Stockport's finest posties (against whom I will not countenance a bad word) are on full terrorist alert.

Sorry John, I guess with hindsight it was a bit of a cheeky suggestion. Knocking on a stranger's door with a story about WW1 medals and asking to be allowed to rummage in the attic. Sounds like a scenario from Crimewatch.
HOWEVER, in your previous employment were you not acquainted with local youths who would undertake this task with minimum fuss (or excuse). Perhaps a few names of clients who are soon to complete their sentences?

IMHO Don't address it to the occupier..........Anything with that on my post goes straight in the bin!

You know the address, you can get the postcode and if you visit or contact the local library they will have a voters list on line so they can provide you with the occupiers names.

If someone wrote me a letter that explained the circumstances of the medals history and family importance I would be up the loft (or wherever) like a shot to try to find them for the 'rightful' owners.

Good luck......Simple thing is........If you don't ask, you will never know.

It IS a scenario from Crimewatch - which is a very successful programme, so keeping my former colleagues in employment.

However, the difficulty of sending a few punters round to Bredbury is that Joe would be even less likely to see his medals (except on ebay, perhaps)

'There is a point of law to consider if the family home changed hands. Consulting a solicitor would not do much good here. Good luck and go get the medals matey. They're yours. Heads up to your Grandad. Tell us more of him once you get his medals'.

Hopefully you didn't misunderstand my previous post (to Joe) Truthergw. What I mean't was that if the medals are still there and home has changed hands then medals in law, belong to the new owner. You could employ a solicitor to fight a case for you, but that would incur alot of money and most probably be an unsuccessful endeavour.

However, by a moral and ethical right, the medals do belong to Joe. He's the descendant of the man who was awarded/given them.

But what are the grounds for thinking the medals are in this house?

From what I gather, I think Joe is working on the premise that, as they are nowhere else known to him, then they must still be at the house his relative lived in years ago. Now, if I was a gambling man...................

John

If is on a premise then the chances are not great..

Ian

John,

I think its down as other occupants on 192.com

Cheers

Joe

Well if that is the last place any one in the family knows where they were, then surely it is worth a try, because surely I ahve a better chance there than if I emailed some dealer asking if hes seen them. God I've done that 100's of tmes.

Joe

Ok, won't address it to the ccupier. Unfortunately I'm in Ireland so local libary gonna cause truble.

Joe

Letter has been sent on Wednsday, without recipient's name or postcode.

Let you know what happens.

Joe

For what it's worth John, if I had any inkling at all about the whereabouts of grandad's medals I would be doing exactly the same as you to try and find them. It is a long shot but it is one worth taking. The worst scenario here is that say no they don't know anything (or words to that effect )

But, do you groundwork, use the web to find the occupants name, 192.com will even supply stuff of the electoral register if you are prepared to pay a fee. I bin stuff addressed to the occupier without opening it. If the sender doesnt know my name then I dont want to know them. Phrase your letter carefully explaining enough to get them interested but don't show your full hand at this stage. Be prepared to follow up contact through an intermediatory (ease their concerns about bad guys nicking the family silver) say a local vicer, press agent (suggested already I think?) or town councillor. They love a good publicity stunt.

Enjoy the hunt and I really hope it comes off.

Di

Well its not looking very good I ahven't had a reply yet.

Joe,

Give it a few more days. You only posted the letter on Wednesday.... first class post (if you're lucky) gets delivered the next day. Allow a day or 2 extra (they may be on holiday), thena day or 2 more to allow them to reply..... wait 'til next Friday before anything might happen.

I wrote a load of letters to people called Coole in Canada (same sort of scenario - looking for help from someone I don't know!) in early November. I've only got one reply and that came through the week before Christmas.

Hang in there!

Les.

Hi Joe, give it time mate, you never know. Do keep us up to date won`t you?
Good luck and fingers crossed!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course I'll keep you all up to date, but I don't think they'll be too much to update. I sent the letter the wednsday before Christmas day.

Nothing so far and I asked for a reply even if they aren't there.

I'd of thought that the address being handwritten and the Irish Stamp would of attracted enough attention for them to of opened it.

Guys,

Great news I got a reply by email from the person who lives there's daughter. Heres what she said happened to the medals:

If i remember correctly my dad took the medals to a army recruitment
centre that back then was in our town centre (Stockport) where a
sargeant
said he would make enquiries and would try to get them to the next of
kin,
After that my dad never heard anymore of the medals.

Well any suggestions on where to go next?

Joe

Joe

I confess to being gobsmacked. Not only were they in the house (the long shot to beat all long shots), but the owner appears to have the decent thing.

The daughter doesnt mention when her father took them to the recruiting office and, assuming the sergeant didnt nick them, then they might still be somewhere in the system.

The current address for the town's Army Careers Information Office is 16 Grand Central Leisure Park, Stockport, SK1 3TB (telephone: 0161 480 4188)

It's possible that he took them to the local Territorial Army base which is The TA Centre, Greek Street, Stockport, SK3 8AB (Telephone 0161 480 4714.

Assuming they are not lying around in the office (unlikely - as I assume it's a number of years since this happened), and assuming they werent nicked, then the likely place for them to have ended up may well the Regimental Museum.

John

Ok, Since everyone has been so nice and supportive and has expressed an interest in this topic I have dicided to post the whole email except the persons name of course.


Dear Joe,
You recently wrote to my mum regarding your
great/grandfathers
medals.
Unfortunately my mum does not remember anything about any medals,
However, i
do i remember may years ago (30+)someone put a envelope through the
door
with the name Mr Till on the front. It contained medals, nothing else,
no
name, no explanation and no address.
My dad (now deceased) thought it was only right that the family of
the
name on the medals should have them and made enquiries with friends and
neighbours as to any information they could give him on Mr Till's
whereabouts.
The only thing he learnt was that a Pierre till had gone to live in
france.
He of course did not know if this was correct he kept the medals for a
while
then someone suggested getting in touch with the army to see if they
could
return the medals to the soldier who received them.
If i remember correctly my dad took the medals to a army recruitment
centre that back then was in our town centre (Stockport) where a
sargeant
said he would make enquiries and would try to get them to the next of
kin,
After that my dad never heard anymore of the medals.
Many years later someone knocked on my mums door asking if he could
take
photographs of the house as his father or grand father had built the
house,
My mum cannot remember which he said but thinks he said he was called
Pierre.
I hope this helps you in some way and if you know your grandfathers
regiment and army number you could try to get in touch with them to see
if
they can assist you in anyway.
GOOD LUCK in
your
search.
Yours
Faithfully,

This story just gets more interesting the deeper we get!!!! Try the museum, fingers crossed the medals will be safely there, even if they won`t let you have them, at least you`ll know were they are. Good luck, keep us up to date!!!

Well. its likely that they could of ended up there,(I'm checkin it out with a lot of help) but would the Cheshire Reg. (if thats the museum you mean) be interested in a set of medals belonging to a man in the RE?

Joe

This becomes an increasingly incredible story with every post of Joe's.

Now we know they werent left in the attic of the house that the Till's lived at. But they were somewhere else.

And then, at some point, whoever had them for all that time decided to return them to where the Tills used to live. So, an interesting couple of questions might be - (1) who on earth could have had them (2) why did they suddenly decide to return them (3) how did they know the Tills lived there once yet didnt know that they were no longer there.

A truly amazing set of co-incidences.

John

Well do you know it was always thought they were just forgotten! But Williams 6 year old son confessed to swapping them for comics when they were brought up in a dicussion, thhat was dismissed as a stupid comment! Until now ofcourse!

I wonder what the value of the medals would be compared to the comics!

Joe

Have you guys seen that new medal finder magazine that's doing the rounds. I saw it the other day... it's good collector-based mag, not dealer, thankfully. Actually, the guy who started just wanted to find his grandad's medals. Maybe you've something in common!

Yet another amazing twist to the tale, Joe.

Let me just check that I'm now understanding the story correctly:-

William lived in a house in Bredbury. You wrote to the present occupier on the off-chance that the medals might still be in the house. They have lived there for more than 30 years. The daughter of the house remembered the medals being returned about 30 years ago - posted through the door - and her father took them to the recruiting office. You also have knowledge that, probably, William's son swapped the medals for comics when he was 6. We can assume that William's son was probably 6 during the 1920s or 1930s. Therefore, we have the situation that the medals were "somewhere else" between the 1920s/30s and around the 1970s when they were kindly returned by someone on the off-chance that the Tills might still live there.

Is this about it, so far?

John

I`m not an xpect on comics, but given the fact that the comics were from the 20`s or 30`s, if there still in good nick, it wouldn`t surprise me if they, were worth a fortune. Take heed of the comic dealer on the Simpsons!!!!! He makes a living out of selling them ho,ho,ho.

Fact really is stranger than fiction!

We have now entered the Twilight Zone.

Do not adjust your sets. That's just the Forum playing up!

Steve.

Yep thats about it so far, th man who wanted to take the pictures of the house was his 6 yeaar old son returning many years later, however medals were not on his mind.

I'll keep everyone up to date.

Joe

Lads what a thread!! I noted that the medals had been returned to an Army careers office at some point. Maybe the blokes there sent them back to the old Army medal office in Droitwich, Worcs. I may be able to help you here. I used to work in the MoD HQ office in Whitehall and my office ( no, cant tell you what office, security isnt a dirty word Blackadder.....!) used to sometimes get medals sent to it for one reason or another. For the Army, we used to send them to a fantastic man at Droitwich by the name of LT COL Condon-great man. He really cared for these medals as I felt he had a great reverence for what they stood for. Anyhoo, he told me on the phone once that he had a special safe/cabinet that he used to put all these returned medals in in case relatives ever wanted to reclaim them at any point in the future.
( Deep breath now) SOOOOOO........ the Army medal office has now amalgamated at RAF Innsworth. I suspect that LT COL Condons cabinet will still be there. If ANYONE wants the contact details let me know and I'll give you the pucker gen!!!
He finishes!!

[ If ANYONE wants the contact details let me know and I'll give you the pucker gen!!!
He finishes!!
[/quote]

GH
Nice one, what a great peice of news - I can't help thinking that you are going to inundated with requests for this one
Nice to know there is someone who cares enough, too.

Lee

This is staggering stuff. Brilliant. Fingers crossed for you, Joe.