RootsChat.Com

Hi David

So sorry to hear about your ebay experience.  It is very painful to see your family items posted on ebay.  We did ask the seller if she could ask the buyer to contact us with any photocopies of information about Tom he has purchased.  Have heard nothing. Only the photocopy of his birth certificate was sent to us by the seller.

I didn't know Tom's nickname - Titch!

I thought you might like to know about the following. 

Back in 2004 a friend of mine knew a wartime sailor who was interested in Tom’s experiences and after an exchange of emails with him he gave me a name of an airman in Australia by the name of Cal Younger (ex Sqr Ldr – shot down while flying a Wellington and then was a POW) who was editor of a POW Association  newsletter The Kriegie.  Cal networked with service men round the world and their families/friends and put many in contact with each other.  He kindly put Tom’s name in the newsletter and sometime later a George Hunt from Bury, Lancs wrote to me with a photo of my Uncle Tom – George thinks it was taken when they were temporarily in Oflag XXIB (it was the same picture I already have in Tom’s Wartime Log!) They were also at Sagan. George mentioned they knew WC Maw a very good carpenter who built the wooden horse for the escape as well as a lot of the theatre and other useful items.

Also Cal is a writer and he told me of a book he had written in the early fifties about the POW experiences -  obviously out of print but ironically back in 2005 I put the title in ebay and blow me a used paperback of the book was up for sale for a mere £2.50 which I bought and in it a Wing Commander Day was mentioned, the very same who is also in Tom’s Log.  Fascinating book.  It is called “No Flight from the Cage”.  I found hardbacks on the internet as well.  At the time Cal Younger had quite a few sites on the internet.  Now I fear he (and George Hunt) may have passed away.  But maybe other people are involved in the newsletter now.  I have just checked on the net and there was a relaunch of the book in July 2013 and the book is available again.

Hope the above is of some interest.

All the best
Madeleine

Hi David,
I am Madeleine Lockyer, Tom's niece.
Sorry, but I'm a total beginner to Rootschat and communicating via forums. It was my cousin, Chris Lockyer who alerted me to the ebay auction. The description led me to a search for Wally's War and your comments on Rootschat came up on the search page, so I registered, hoping I could contact you. Unfortunately although we tried bidding, we were unsuccessful and failed to win the auction. I contacted the seller, who informed me they had bought the items from someone who had discovered them in their attic, where they had been for some thirty years. I was shocked and saddened to see Tom's personal papers being sold for profit and prior to any bids having been placed, asked the seller if they would consider either returning them to our family or passing them on to The RAF Museum. The seller politely refused as they had paid a fair price for them, but kindly sent me a photocopy of Tom's Birth Certificate. The copies that Chris has are all scans I had made of Tom's original documents which came into my possession from my father, (Tom's brother Norman) after he died. It would be interesting just to see scans of the ebay documents, but the buyer's ID seems to be hidden and strangely enough, has zero feedback. Maybe he/she is someone with another family connection who joined ebay purely because of the auction. Hope this helps to clarify my position. I would be most interested to hear your comments.

Kind regards,
Madeleine Lockyer