| I looked everywhere I could think of looking and checked every record I could think of checking, but I was at a dead end and didn't know where
to look next. Some time later I was discussing the problem with a colleague and mentioned Walton Avenue. "Have you asked Tony?" he asked, "He lives on Walton
Avenue." Tony is an electrician whom I had known for quite some time but didn't know his address and never thought to discuss my research with him. When I saw him a day or two later I asked about Walton Avenue and he explained that he moved from that address a few years earlier. When I asked him if he had known any Swarbricks on Walton Avenue he replied, "You mean Les and Dorothy?" I was amazed. He not only knew them but knew them well. He told me that they too had left Walton Avenue and gave me their new address. I wrote a letter of introduction and popped it into the post the day before travelling down to London to attend a friend's wedding. When I returned my girlfriend's mother told me that while we were away the Lancashire Evening Post had printed a death notice for a man called Leslie Swarbrick. I couldn't believe it, but it was true - my father's cousin passed away before my letter reached him. A week or two later Leslie's widow Dorothy rang and told me that she had received my letter on the day of Leslie's funeral. After a pleasant conversation we made arrangements to meet and discuss my research. Dorothy showed me photographs of her late husband and we talked about his life and their family. It was Dorothy who told me that Leslie's sister Elsie was very much alive and offered to put me in touch with her. Elsie wrote to me on 31 December 1993 and I went to visit her a few days later. As she was an elderly widow living on her own I thought it best to take my girlfriend Patricia with me. I thought that Elsie might feel a bit intimidated by a strange foreign man in her home and would be more at ease if Patricia was with me. Meeting Elsie was an amazing experience. Although she was a small child when the family lost contact with my granddad and didn't remember her "Uncle Dick", she knew of him from the stories her parents and grandparents used to tell. She told me about his early life, about his relationship with his parents and siblings, and was shocked when I told her that he had always claimed to have been born in Glasgow. "Glasgow? He wasn't born in Glasgow!" |