The best present I have had in years.

[MarkCDodd]

I just received this e-mail.

"Dear Mark,

I am Carroll - the person you have been helping, with Peter Hore, to find Reginald Hall who joined the Australian
Armed Forces during WWI.
I would like to thank you most sincerely for all the work you put in towards finding Reg - I had been looking for
Reg Hoare for a couple of years and without you and Peter, I would still be fighting a lost cause.
I expect Peter has told you that Bett, Reg's daughter, has died recently. She had a stroke and only lasted a few
weeks after that.
I wish I could convey to you and to Peter, the utter joy in her little face, when I was finally able to give her the
completed findings about her father! I gave her a ring binder that was almost full of information - all his Army
records and various odds and ends that we had managed to glean since finding his real name.
I almost feel, that she had been hanging onto life, just to know about her father, because it seems such a
coincidence that once she had the news and had long enough to digest it, she fell ill and did not recover.
It is very sad for us, to see her house being cleared by her friends (Bett had no living relatives) and to see the
For Sale sign go up - even sadder when we see the people who come and go, after viewing it. I feel like
shouting: That's Bett's house, you can't have it!
I hope all is well with you, and wish to thank you once again - you and Peter will never know how grateful I am
to have had so much help from people the other side of the world - I think you are both truly wonderful.
Thank you. Happy Christmas."

Bett was in her early 90's and knew nothing about her father except he was born in London and was serving in the Australian Army when he met her mother in a military hospital.

She had part of an address in Sydney that was supposed to have been her father's in 1919.

Starting from that, myself and a friend did several months of hard research to find out about her father and present her with his life story.

She had his name wrong which was the first of many surprises.

He came to Australia for a holiday and the war started. Like many British he was eager to get into the war and so they signed up whilst in Austalia as it could take months or years to return to the UK.

He was a hero. Wounded twice at Gallipoli, either of which was a ticket home if he wanted, he returned to action both times well ahead of the medical advice given to his C.O.

He fought all the major battles involving the Anzacs on the Western Front until the final injury, a rifle bullet removing half his jaw in early 1918, finally ended his stint in the military.

He spent several months in a recuperation hospital where he met Bett's mother.

At the end of the war he was repatriated to his place of enlistment, Sydney Australia. This was standard procedure and your were still under military orders to comply.

We found several letters from him asking both the Australian and British governments for help with the fare to return to England.

In those letters he expressed the need to see his newly born daughter and marry her mother.

By the time he arrived back in Britain, Bett's mother had met and was intending to marry another returned soldier.

Reginald did not want to interfere with her wishes so never contacted her again and never made himself know to Betty.

Unknown to Betty, her father lived a few miles from her till his death in September 1940 in one of the first bombings of London.

He tried to enlist in the British Army at the start of WWII but his WW1 injuries were too severe.

So he signed up to be an Air Warden.

During one of the first bombings of The Blitz he was helping a family find an air shelter.

Just as they made it down the steps to safety a bomb exploded nearby and killed Reginald, who was still directing people into the shelter, instantly.

So I was glad we found his story for his daughter. He was a man worth remembering for his sacrifices to his homeland and his services to this colony.

Knowing that our research made her smile was all the thanks we needed.

[grangers14]

Oh thats lovely!
Well done finding the information, it makes it all so worth while getting such a lovely letter like that.
Jo

[Northern Lass]

lovely!!

[BC Wench]

That's so lovely Mark, thanks for sharing it with us. Bet you felt really chuffed on reading the letter after all the hard work you put into the research.

[mallosa]

Well! That's certainly bought tears to my eyes.

Well done Mark to you and your friend

[Annie]

Well done from me also Mark , what a lovely feeling it must be to have been such a help.

Annie