Tracing an illusive Railway employee, London, 1930s

[BobB1]

Another thought - Alf/Albert may have been redeployed within the railway company.  At the same time they were closing the dining cars they would have been loosing staff who either volunteered at outbreak of war, or were mobilised with the Territorial Army.

Hi

Yes, its possible he was redeployed. But if we accept that in 1939, the Albert Wilson, identified as a Pub Caretaker in Camden is the same man as Albert Spiers, then this confirms that by then he was no longer a railway dining car attendant - as you say, possibly due to the closure of the dining cars.

So in reality, I'm looking for evidence of employment in London from around 1927 to 1938/9

Bob

[MollyC]

I am referring to the occupations on the death certificate.  See replies #28 & #30, page 4, he may have been caretaking for the railway briefly, and he did not stay at the pub for long before moving to the hostel on Arlington Road.  The company probably looked after their own, as far as they could in the chaos of the time, and it explains the unlikely switch from waiting at table to engineering.  That makes the previous dining car attendant position more plausible.

[Sc00p]

N.B. Another potential line of enquiry is the prison record of the Albert Spiers in 1926 ish. Where did he serve his sentence? I don't know where to look for this record any further than I've already tried. If it exists it should contain much detail about him.

The Court records for this time appear to be in the Birmingham Archives along with the Birmingham Guardians records (specifically I'd be looking into the "Maintenance and Settlement Committee" records as they appear to cover desertion/chargeability).

Courts https://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/app_themes/customer/images/bah-source-Court%20and%20Criminal%20Records.pdf
Guardians https://calmview.birmingham.gov.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=GP+B%2f1%2f2%2f7%2f20

Unfortunately, I think you are going to come up against the 100 year rule but it might be worth calling the Archive to confirm.

[MollyC]

The court records may be closed but committee minutes should be open, as a public document.  They may not mention names, but knowing the date it would be possible to search.

[mazi]

Railforums is a very fast moving site, it may be worthwhile to reply a few times just to keep your question visible.

Good luck,  mike

[Redroger]

If it had become known to the railway ompany that he had served a prison sentance he would not have been in railway employment for more than a few further hours in that era.

[ValJJJ]

SS, I also find the small incidentals make it appear him being the right man. But it's still not a confirmation in itself, which is what I'm now trying to establish to remove doubt. This is why I think trying to fill the gaps, which in themselves are an important part of the story, might be very helpful.

My Mother is appreciative and very interested, but she can't add much to what I tell her as its mostly all new to her. She was a very young child at the time. Neither can I overload her with verbal information as she forgets too easily, so I'm busy collating it into a written report she can read at leisure.

Yet occasionally some obscure snippet drops into conversation that she never mentioned before or couldn't connect to anything specifically. 

This family history research is both fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.

Bob

I'm following this fascinating tale and amazing research as it has echoes of my own search for my mystery grandfather. I so agree with others that DNA would be useful if your mother can be persuaded.  It's just some spit in a tube. But perhaps she is worried about what it might reveal, or concerned that she loses control of her privacy.  DNA tests weren't a thing (or I didn't know about them, or they were too expensive - certainly not on my radar) when my mother wondered more frequently what happened to her own father, and although I did find out a lot about him eventually (thanks to RootsChatters) that then threw up a new mystery as to his father.  My siblings/cousins have tested but her DNA would have been much more valuable for that research.  But I do know my mother was surprised at how much personal information was out there about her family - just things like BMD, newspaper reports and so on.  'You can't keep anything a secret!'

Also I found incidental comments invaluable.  There was an element of truth to all the oft-repeated anecdotes, plus I found just chatting generally about her family revealed more.  Things like 'why did your parents give you your names' - it turned out that her name was in memory of another family member who I hadn't know existed.  Other more general things about life or other family members, led to reminiscences that then triggered other windows into the past.  Such as 'who was your favourite teacher', 'what was your favourite subject' - anything really that's  nothing obviously to do with family history research but leads the conversation down memory lane where all sorts of snippets pop up.

As for occupations of fathers on birth/marriage certificates - in my family at least, their occupations were elevated if not totally fictitious. 

Good luck with your search.

[BobB1]

If it had become known to the railway ompany that he had served a prison sentance he would not have been in railway employment for more than a few further hours in that era.

In theory yes. Yet somehow he managed to overcome this issue - perhaps the change of ID helped?

On that basis for now I take his declarations on birth certificates and family knowledge as the gospel truth. However, he appeared to have a loose arrangement with such facts - so who knows.

FYI.

On Sunday I asked my Mother if she was aware her Father might have been in the Navy? No response. Much later, on the journey home, she tells me ''he was in the Army, NOT the Navy, he worked with an old Army friend...''

Then.... ''I don't know why, but I have a feeling he might have been in jail or something...''

She can't add anything else to these snippets. The first might not mean anything in reality, but the second is interesting.