northumberland death

[debbyftm]

  thanks for tht hun! 

[alasdair1946]

Hi Debbyftm

I've just read your enquiries made in 2008 regarding a Thomas Lawton, originally from the Houghton Le spring area near Durham who died in Morpeth, ?in late 1970's & at St Christophers House Morpeth.
Your enquiries seem to have come to a dead end.

This may be a complete coincidence but I know of a man named Thomas Lawton, originally from Fence Houses, near Durham, who was born on 7 December 1913 in Fence Houses & died on 5 May 1993 at The general Hospital, Ashington. He had lived for the last few years of his life at 6 Renwick House, Morpeth. Renwick House is located opposite St Christopher's, both being sheltered housing accommodation for elderly & disabled people.

I have a lot of information about him - a brief case full of photographs, letters, documents, including death certificate, army records, small bible, numerous drawings + paintings - he was a proficient artist, among other talents. There were two World War 2 Army Service medals, which sadly disappeared but I have the details of them, including the box  they came in.

The reason I have all this & for which I'm so interested in him, is that a dear friend of mine, Maureen Hughes, who sadly died 4 years ago, befriended him about a year or two before he died - she was very distressed at the time & Tom was a godsend to her, he helped & supported her immensely before his rather sudden death.

He lived most of his life in Fence Houses, near Durham & very near Houghton Le Spring. He was married twice, first to Sallie (probably Sarah) Routledge, from 1935 - 1975 & married again when he had moved to Morpeth but I don't at the moment have details of his second wife. She died within a year of their marriage. He had a sister Gladys Todd, who was married & lived in Darlington - was a plumber by trade & served as a gunner in The Army from 1942 to 1946, taking part in the Normandy Landings in June 1944 & subsequently crossing The Rhine into Germany before being billeted with a family in Holland, repatriated & then served in India in 1945-6.

Maureen kept the archive material which I now have. I never met him but we both admired him greatly & intended to put a record of this on a BBC Wartime archive but never got round to it.

If you think this could be the Tom Lawton who is your relative, please let me know & I'll let you have as much information as I can. I think its a strong possibility, the dates are a bit out but locations are similar & two persons of the same name with these details would be an awful coincidence. This site advises us not to disclose email addresses or personal details but we could find some way of getting in touch.
 
Yours Sincerely

Alasdair Turnbull Morpeth.

[debbyftm]

Hi got a shock at getting a reply after so long.
I just phoned my big sister who had met Tom on a few occasions. She says the last time was at my dads funeral in 1977.
Thomas Lawton was my dads (Amos Lawton) cousin. My dad was also born in Fence Houses in 1911.
I read out your message to my sister over the phone and she remembers the Thomas Lawton In our family having been married and widowed. She remembers meeting his lady friend at a family funeral. Either our grans or my dads she wasn't sure.
It was my sister that told me about him living in sheltered accomodation Christopher House Morpeth. But she thought he had died in the late 70s not long after our dad 1977.
I have a photograph of my dads family on his mothers side the Callendars. My dad is on there standing alongside his brother George and my sister thinks Thomas too.
My mother died 3 years ago. I got the picture froma relative before her death and she also confirmed that it was Thomas on the picture.
So if you have any information mentioning the surname Callendar too I reckon we have the same Thomas Lawton.
Great to hear from you. Thank you xx

[alasdair1946]

Hello again debbyftm

Thanks for your reply post.

I've gone through the material I have and can find no mention of the name Callender, indeed, there is very little personal information but I have absolutely no doubt this is Thomas Lawton, cousin of your dad Amos Lawton.

There is a photocopy of an item in a newspaper which reads as follows "Mrs Lawton, 9 Thames Crescent Fence Houses has received a letter from the Record Office that her husband, Fusilier Amos Lawton, N.F. (ie Northumberland Fusiliers) is posted missing in Malaya, when the garrison of Singapore capitulated on February 15th (1942). He has been in the Army over two years".  Above the text, there is a small head & shoulders photo of him in uniform.  Maureen & I were puzzled by this, at first we wondered whether "Amos" should read "Thomas" but we knew Tom's army record showed he only joined up on 6 June 1942 & nothing of any service in Singapore, so he obviously kept this as it referred to his cousin. So that clears up a mystery!

Winston Churchill said Singapore was the greatest British military disaster of all time - a complete humiliation, tens of thousands of soldiers taken prisoner. I looked up your dad's name on Google & came across a website "9th Northumberland Fusiliers - Fepow Community" (Fepow stands for Far East Prisoners of War). On there, posts have been made by a "Christof" about his father, Amos Lawton - is this your brother? He describes how his father arrived in Singapore on the ship Felix Roussel and says there is "confusion amongst the family as to what happened next." His dad maintained he was taken prisoner then but others report heading for the hills on disembarcation. He goes on to give more details of his father's account of what happened then & after. Are you aware of any of this? There is a lot more information on the site about what happened in Singapore - it makes harrowing reading. What your dad & others went through then was just among the worst war crimes imaginable.  No wonder so many wouldn't - or couldn't - talk about it to their death.

Amongst the  archive from Tom are -

1. An 11 page account entitled "A Soldiers Life", written by Tom on his demob. in 1946. He was a conscript & makes it very plain that he was a reluctant soldier but he did as he was ordered & showed immense bravery. It makes compelling reading.  There is also a letter written by him but imagining it was written by his padre (Army chaplain) addressed to him, assuring him that although he feels he has changed his wife will still welcome him home.

2. A New Testament Bible with illustrations & engravings - a lovely item - given to him by "Uncle George" in 1922, when he was 9! Tom was definitely a Christian believer but not necessarily a churchgoer - he had misgivings. He shared this very much with Maureen.

3.A number of photos, many from wartime in India, some later, at Normandy Veteran reunions plus at least one of his first wife Sallie and a few others of people I can't identify.

I would like to know how he was related to your dad, if its not too personal. I just feel that these two men and others, without their bravery, the world as it was then might have been overrun by  felons, completely unscrupulous people who followed Hitler, Mussolini & the Japanese leaders & would any of us be here now?   

You mentioned that your big sister remembers meeting Tom's lady friend at a funeral, probably your dad's. That wouldn't have been Maureen, as she only met Tom little more than 2 years before he died. After his first wife died in 1975, he was pining for her, almost becoming a recluse & his sister said "Tom, you need to go out & find someone to share the rest of your life with" . He did that& I think that might be the person your sister remembers. It didn't work out but he found another person, who was disabled, wheelchair bound. - by this time, he was in Morpeth. Sadly, that too lasted only about a year when she too died but then he met Maureen and had it not been for his own death, that would have been lasting. There is literally a mass of correspondence both between them & joint letters to various people, including The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Head of the Baptist Church, Enoch Powell etc.

Hope this hasn't been too long.

Regards

Alasdair 

 


 

 

[debbyftm]

Hi. Yes we are on the same family!  that is Amos my dad. He was a Pow In Burma. My brother Chris did some research into my dads time in the Northumberland Fusilliers on the FEPOW website. He was married with 3 children then but on return from the Far East discovered his wife had gone awol with another man and the children. He then married my mother a few years later. He became a psychiatric nurse at WInterton Hospital Sedgefield. This was where he met my mother.
I would love to be able to see anything you have. Maybe copies via email. My dad Amos died in 77 when I was 10. So I don't have many memories of him and doing family tree is difficult as none of my dads siblings are alive now and it's hard tracing cousins.
My sister thinks it may have been our grans funeral. She was called Mary Ann Callender she married Amos Lawton...my dads father also called Amos. Mary Ann or Polly as she got called died in 72 so maybe my sis saw Tom at that funeral too with his wife.
I would love to know who Toms parents are. I have quite a bit of family tree done on the Lawton side.
I am youngest of seven children so my eldest sis is mid 60s and can tell me little stories she knows.
I have also told my eldest sister all you have told me. She mentioned that Tom may have been in India during the war. She says she remembers him being at my dads funeral in a car with her and 2 of my other sisters and he said my dad was the only man he knew who would travel to India to see him/someone ?? and that my dad was a lovely man. My dads brother George was also in India so maybe it was him he went to see, or maybe even both of them!
I can only think that Thomas was also a lovely man to have kept things about my dad. It really is emotional to think that a man who was related and knew my dad is so highly thought of about friends, I only wish I had known him too.
The bible with Uncle George in. He would have been my great uncle George. I would certainly love to see what you have and I would definitely share any photos or tree information if your interested. If I knew Thomas' parents I could surely research his tree further.
Thank you so much for helping me find Tom. He may be gone but he hasn't been forgotten by this part of his family.
Thank you
Debbie

[debbyftm]

Think I've worked out from the info I have that Toms dad was either James or David Lawton

[debbyftm]

Hi was just wondering if all is ok as I've not heard more from you. Deb x