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So it's possible she was back in the house on the 15th April until the autumn of 1940, it's unlikely that the brother was evacuated then as he looked older than his sister in the picture. So if we look for the Shorts we may find the brother being there and then disappearing, maybe to goto war?

Are the electoral rolls available up to 1940 for Enfield? it wont show Catherine, bit it may show Mr and Mrs Short and maybe her brother, so we can get the names of the family as they were not mentioned in the clues.

All very interesting.

Watched the roadshow today, its obvious that the lady that was on the show didn't come from the Black Country when she found the 'treasure' when she was 12 year old in 1980.

The '39 register shows only 2 Bullsmoor Lanes, and 1 with the address 64 (unless there are some bullsmoor lanes on the Known missing places from Register e.g derbyshire and Kent etc), its likely the one in Enfield is the correct place as this has a garage as mentioned in the clues and Google maps shows this 'likely garage' as shown in the image I posted.

I don't think this was a scam/hoax or whatever and I think this actual treasure hunt took place on the 15th April 1940, but even with the info that were in the clues I think it will hard to find 'Catherine' as we haven't got access to all the relevant records, ideally we'd need rent/rate books for the house on April 1940 to find any Shorts living there as certainly on 29th September 1939 when the register took place no Shorts lived there. It seem improbable that by the 15th April 1940 (6 months after the registration) that the Fells had all moved out and the Shorts moved in but not impossible.

Let's all try and put this to rest (unless someone else has done this already) and get all the relevant facts together:-

15th April 1940 the date the clues were written
Catherine Short the name of the person writing the clues
1928 The Approx date of birth as mentioned by Catherine as she was 12 in 1940
64 Bullsmoor Lane the address in the clues
She had a Mother, Father, and 1 Older Brother (obviously all alive)
Her Mum had a sister, who was in a relationship with a man (may not be married)
She may have moved to the seaside between 16th April 1940 and 31st Dec 1940 (Cath says soon)


Does anyone else have any factual or logical information gained from the clues?

If you have traced back one side of your family to the 1700's and your husbands family to 1600 you must have spent some time researching family tree's so you are probably not a novice at this.

If this is your grandfather it shouldn't be too difficult to get a name unless its a complicated situation like my grandparents were.  If you do want to PM me with some details to stop the thread becoming too long and I will see if I can add any value to your searches.

It's often a case of two heads better than one and if I can get any further details we can add it here and then see if anyone else can help.

Regards

Mike

From the British Library:- http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/atyourdesk/newscopy/permiss/newscopyright.html

"For an unsigned or anonymous article: copyright expires 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work was made, or made available to the public. For example, a newspaper published in 1930 is out of copyright in 2001."
 
It's also technically possible, but the results vary, when you scan a newspaper article it may come out looking like lots of little dots (search halftone images on google to see what I mean) as this was the process used in newspapers of the time, although things are improved nowadays (but then you get into the copyrighted scenario), hope this helps a little.

Mike