Robert Lindsay Uncovers a Shocking Family War Secret | S3 E2 | Who Do You Think You Are

[00:00:04]Chelsea, I'm an actor and when I first heard of this program, Who Do You Think You Are?

[00:00:13]I thought it was aptly named because like most actors don't know who they are.

[00:00:18]And I certainly spend most of my life playing other people, being other people.

[00:00:25]I think I've reached that stage where I'm I'm I'm reflective now. I want to see where I come from.

[00:00:34]>> Apart from my parents, of course, I know nothing. I mean, my parents' parents, I'd love to know.

[00:00:41]It would be uh it would be a revelation, I think, to find out what is the fact of of the family.

[00:00:53]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:30]Robert Lindseay Stevenson was born in 1949, the eldest of three children.

[00:01:38]He grew up in Ilkiston, a small industrial town in Darbisha.

[00:01:44]I think what my family background is very workingass.

[00:01:48]There was a steel works in the town called Stanton and Staveley which employed most of my family. I can't imagine that I've come from anything very far away cuz all the stories are usually associated with that small town in in Darbisha.

[00:02:06]>> Robert's beginning his journey by returning home to Ilkston.

[00:02:11]Some days I feel nervous, then I feel excited.

[00:02:16]Today I'm feeling like let's get started. And I think some days will be a laugh. And I think some days will be a shock.

[00:02:36]Ilkiston is home to generations of Robert's family. His parents, Norman and Joyce, lived there all their lives.

[00:02:47]>> I think my dad's one of the most honest men I know, a real spirit, real soul.

[00:02:52]Um, mom had a great spiritual sense. She used to read fortunes.

[00:02:59]She had a crystal ball which hid for years in the pantry. My dad never knew about it. And people used to come around and she used to read the crystal ball for them.

[00:03:08]Sadly, Joyce died in January 2000.

[00:03:13]>> But she was a very powerful presence, mom. Very powerful. I miss her. I miss her calls. I miss her comradeship. I miss her sense of fun. She always managed to make us laugh.

[00:03:30]Robert's father, Norman, still lives in the home he shared with Joyce.

[00:03:46]Who you think you are?

[00:03:50]Very good. What the hell do you think you are? Hey, excuse me. Um, is the kettle on?

[00:03:55]>> I consume everything.

[00:03:57]>> Here you go. Right.

[00:04:07]Robert's starting his research with Norman's parents.

[00:04:12]Grandfather Jesse Stevenson was a laborer at the Stanton Iron Foundry.

[00:04:19]His wife Mary worked in a local underwear factory.

[00:04:26]>> There's me grandma.

[00:04:27]>> Yeah, there's me and mom.

[00:04:30]Do you know when grandma came to live with us? Yeah. And the one thing I remember about her >> was she used to eat those chocolate Brazils. No.

[00:04:37]>> But you never told me there were chocolate Brazils, did you?

[00:04:40]>> Cuz I used to find Brazil nuts in a in a in a by the side of her bed and I used to eat her what I thought were her Brazil nuts >> until years later you told me she sucked all the chocolate off >> because she had four teeth.

[00:04:54]>> What do you think I left them there for?

[00:04:58]So, who have we got here? Oh, >> and there's >> this is your dad.

[00:05:02]>> Dad.

[00:05:04]During the war, he had his chest all smashed open.

[00:05:08]>> First world war.

[00:05:09]>> He got blown blown up and he finished in like a big dustpin and all these bricks come in and smashed all his chest open.

[00:05:16]>> What?

[00:05:17]>> And where was he? Where was he in France?

[00:05:19]>> He was in France.

[00:05:20]>> In the trenches.

[00:05:21]>> In in trenches and this.

[00:05:23]>> Oh my god. I didn't know.

[00:05:24]>> Anyway, he got over it. They got him.

[00:05:26]reasonably right and he didn't come out the army till the end of the war.

[00:05:31]>> Was he ranked?

[00:05:32]>> He was serving as an ordinary private soldier in the Sheerwood Foresters which is the local Nottingham >> Nottingham regiment >> regiment.

[00:05:41]>> But he survived the first world war. One of the few who did survive.

[00:05:45]>> Robert never knew his grandfather Jesse.

[00:05:49]He died of pneumonia 10 years before Robert was born.

[00:05:53]I'm really interested in Jess now, but I would really like to know whether he did serve in the Sherwood Foresters and and I what I'd really like to find out was where he served in France and and how the hell he survived after being blown up.

[00:06:10]That is what I think I need to find out cuz, you know, dad's the last generation. We're all moving on and I think this is the time to find out.

[00:06:24]If Jesse did serve with the Sherwood Foresters, there should be a record at the regimental archive in Nottingham.

[00:06:32]>> Oh boy.

[00:06:34]>> Major Oliver Hackett is the archives's curator.

[00:06:39]>> Right. I got the right key.

[00:06:46]Oh, so >> this is the the archives of showers and our reserve collection here. So you sit there and we'll have a look.

[00:06:54]>> Yeah.

[00:06:56]>> I wonder if this will be a dead end.

[00:06:58]>> Well, it may well be. We'll see.

[00:07:00]>> We're looking for Jesse Stevenson.

[00:07:02]>> Jesse.

[00:07:02]>> Stevenson with a V.

[00:07:06]>> Okay. Right.

[00:07:12]Right.

[00:07:16]Well, we got a little Jesse Stevenson, first battalion, joined the battalion 14 April 15.

[00:07:24]>> Served with D Company.

[00:07:26]>> W stands for wounded.

[00:07:28]>> Mhm.

[00:07:29]>> 13th of February 1916 and he was sent home um a few days later. So now the the key you've got here um to find him further is his army number.

[00:07:41]>> Okay.

[00:07:42]>> So you need to make a note of this.

[00:07:44]18582.

[00:07:45]>> You remember that?

[00:07:47]>> 185.

[00:07:48]>> Would that give us more information?

[00:07:50]>> That is the the king pin.

[00:07:53]>> In April 1915, aged 25, Jesse volunteered to fight.

[00:08:00]Like thousands of others, he downed tools and headed for the Western Front.

[00:08:10]>> Do you want to see the rifle he carried?

[00:08:13]Yes, please.

[00:08:13]>> You can finish to this is a this is actually a deactivated one.

[00:08:19]So it's nothing in it. But you would have lumbered around with one of those.

[00:08:23]>> This is a 303.

[00:08:24]>> It is CSML short magazine Leenfield rifle.

[00:08:27]>> Wow. My gun.

[00:08:29]>> You would have he still held always on his mills grenades and rations you've been welding.

[00:08:35]>> And he had a and had a 18inch bandit on the end.

[00:08:38]>> Magazine. How many?

[00:08:39]>> 10 round 10 rounds one. 10 rounds on one of the spouts.

[00:08:44]>> That's exactly it.

[00:08:47]>> That gives you 11.

[00:08:48]>> That is fantastic. I mean, it is, you know, >> that is the smile. Lovely weaponizing.

[00:08:53]>> I think I'd like to know what really happened to him, you know, because it would give me more of a of a a picture of him as a human being, as a person. I really wish I'd known him now. I really do. I would have been great. But I'm going to find out more, aren't I?

[00:09:15]The National Archives in London house over 10 million documents of historical importance.

[00:09:24]Among them, the official war diary for Jesse Stevenson's battalion.

[00:09:42]Here we are, the very day my grandfather was wounded, the 13th of February, 1916.

[00:09:49]And it says the weather was showery.

[00:09:56]Typical Ilkiston weather.

[00:10:00]In the afternoon, a large burst of heavy shells was put over into Chappelle Dam.

[00:10:08]Oh, how do you pronounce Where's my friend? Chappelle Dantier.

[00:10:15]The diary reveals that Jesse was serving in Armonier, a heavily disputed town on the Belgian border.

[00:10:24]It was guarded by lines of British trenches, which the Germans shelled day and night. Enemies artillery again very active.

[00:10:38]One heavy shell struck the machine gun billet. One entered one of C company's billets and a third entered one of D Company's billets, grandfather's company in Chappelle Domier. The total casualties in the battalion were two killed, 10 wounded. One of the worst days the battalion has had for some considerable time.

[00:11:04]You bet.

[00:11:09]The wounded men from D Company were taken to a field hospital behind the lines.

[00:11:16]Conditions were basic. The medics often overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the casualties.

[00:11:27]Some of the medical records still survive.

[00:11:34]>> Oh boy.

[00:11:36]Jesse Stevenson. Rank private.

[00:11:41]There's his number. 18582.

[00:11:45]I've even got his height.

[00:11:48]He's 5'6.

[00:11:49]He was smaller than my dad.

[00:11:56]What the hell is this?

[00:11:58]Fourth finger of right hand has been amputated.

[00:12:03]Oh lord, lordy, lordy, lordy. A piece of shell entered the front of leg and pelvis.

[00:12:15]Operation for removal of shell fragments.

[00:12:20]Wow. I wonder if that was done with an aesthetic.

[00:12:25]Oh, Jesse, poor old bugger.

[00:12:32]The above named man is discharged in consequence of no longer physically fit for war service.

[00:12:42]Character awarded in accordance with King's regulations.

[00:12:46]He was sober, honest, and trustworthy.

[00:12:51]Oh, my dad is going to love this.

[00:12:55]I guess being an actor and a complete romantic, I kind of assumed that my granddad would be, you know, some major hero jumping over the parapets and saving people's lives. But I just to read that he served well and was honest, sober, and trustworthy.

[00:13:16]They're not those qualities around very much anymore.

[00:13:20]Yeah, I just think he's a quite a remarkable man.

[00:13:38]Jesse's injuries may have saved his life.

[00:13:42]In July 1916, the British army prepared for battle at the S.

[00:13:50]While Jesse recuperated, the Sherwood Foresters took part in the bloodiest campaign of the war.

[00:13:59]Of the 1,000 men in his battalion, almost half were killed or wounded.

[00:14:16]In January 1917, Jesse Stevenson came home to Ilkston.

[00:14:25]Despite his injuries, he returned to the Stanton Iron Works.

[00:14:32]In its heyday, Stanton was the lifeblood of the town. Its furnaces fueled by the local coal fields, its forges operated by thousands of local men.

[00:14:46]The foundry worked day and night producing iron pipes for export across the empire.

[00:14:58]Ilkiston is based around this this place, you know, Stanton. It's iron works. employed most of the town and it employed the Stevenson family and um you know I've got a spiritual link with it and I can feel it you know it's almost like you can feel the link um it's perfect day to be here really four generations of the Stevenson family worked at Stanton even Robert >> I was employed by Stanton to clean out of the sewers. I was shoveling [ __ ] Um I went down a sewer a manhole and at the bottom was was [ __ ] and you shoveled it out in a bucket and a and a guy pulled it up in a bucket and he emptied it and he stayed down there until it was empty.

[00:15:51]But it was a summer job and it was oh it was horrendous.

[00:15:57]By the 1970s, Stanton was in decline, a victim of Britain's wider industrial decay.

[00:16:06]Local historian Danny KS is guiding Robert around what survives of the original site.

[00:16:21]>> This is called the shell shop. And it's called that because it was specially built in the first world war for actually making shelves for the western front.

[00:16:28]>> Oh, really?

[00:16:28]>> The cranes would come along with big iron ladles hanging from them.

[00:16:33]>> Yeah.

[00:16:33]>> Then the hook on the crane would [ __ ] the iron like this and it would pour into the casting, >> pour into the mold. Bits of metal flying all over the place. And the noise, the heat would be tremendous. It probably something like 120° in here.

[00:16:56]During the First World War, the shell shop produced over half a million tons of munitions.

[00:17:04]>> Yes, it would make shells in here. It' be a fetler helping to make the shell.

[00:17:08]>> A fetler.

[00:17:08]>> A fetler. A fetler is a man that cleans up all the castings after they've been cast. There's a lot of sharp edges on castings. Had to be cleaned off and they use hammer and chisel. And you couldn't see a fetler without scars on his face.

[00:17:21]>> Oh boy.

[00:17:22]>> Of course, chipping away. Chipping away like that. Of course, >> you know, flying back at you, bits flying off. They didn't wear goggles like these things in those days. They tack, you know.

[00:17:30]>> So, I'm just trying to imagine I've got I've got a granddad who comes out the first world war. He's been blown up in a trench. He survives the First World War.

[00:17:38]He's minus the finger. He's got three strapping lads and he comes here in this bedum. I mean, from that bedum to this bedum absolutely.

[00:17:47]>> Can you imagine? I mean, there's no relief from anything.

[00:17:49]>> Most people worked at least 52 years.

[00:17:52]>> Yeah.

[00:17:52]>> My dad and his six brothers all did 52 years at the iron works. You're born within the shadows of the furnaces. You You're born with iron in your blood.

[00:18:04]I can't tell you when I worked here in the 60s and that foundry door opened, the noise, the the sense of danger, the the the banging, the and the fire and the dropping of molten um iron on the floor and guys just walking through it willy-nilly. And I mean, and there's me absolutely petrifying going, "No, I'm going to be an artist. I can't I don't want to I can't cope.

[00:18:36]Robert worked his last shift at Stanton at the age of 18.

[00:18:41]He won a place at Rada, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

[00:18:47]But as an Ilkiston lad on the London stage, his voice immediately stood out.

[00:18:54]This is called AOP Midok. AOP midok. And it's literally a translation of the Oistan accent. I think it's fantastic.

[00:19:03]There's a little poem here which is in written in the Okiston dialect. I can remember years ago when I when I want to start this again. I can remember years ago when I were a little kid always a lot to do but note for what we did up dotted scrum to play with tubs and reels in summer. It was so warm.

[00:19:26]Oh, I can't even say it myself. It says lining which is looking lining down on grain fields. I like this bit. We're bread and chase and a big bottle of water. Go as we please for it didn't matter.

[00:19:45]Oh dear. The irony is I don't know why I'm laughing because I used to talk like this.

[00:19:50]I'm sure I wasn't as broad as this but I can imagine them at Rada when I arrived.

[00:19:57]Hey, you got away here. I'm terribly sorry. What did you say? So, I was asked to lose my accent and um probably best me.

[00:20:18]>> Robert is staying in Ilkston to find out more about his mother, Joyce's family.

[00:20:26]I'm interested to see how much I do know. My mother, you see, was a great storyteller. She loved telling stories, and the stories got bigger and bolder as each year went by.

[00:20:39]So, it would be a revelation, I think, to just clear up a few family myths and legends.

[00:20:46]One of Joyce's favorite stories involved her father, Raymond Dunore, also a veteran of the First World War.

[00:20:54]Raymond lived with Robert's family for 2 years before his death in 1970, but he never spoke about his past.

[00:21:03]>> And Granddad Dmore here, he was in the Navy.

[00:21:07]>> Is that HMS Prince of Wales?

[00:21:08]>> He was on HMS Prince of Wales.

[00:21:10]>> Can I just say this is what I was told when I was a kid that Grandad Dunore was blown up on the HMS Prince of Wales.

[00:21:17]>> Correct. and that within 8 hours after being rescued, he was then blown up again by a German torpedo.

[00:21:25]>> I think I can remember something about that.

[00:21:27]>> So there is some fact in that.

[00:21:28]>> Yeah.

[00:21:30]>> And this was Hannah, his good wife.

[00:21:32]>> Yeah. Hannah, >> looking at Grandma Dunmore there.

[00:21:36]>> Yeah.

[00:21:37]>> That's a very attractive woman.

[00:21:39]>> Yeah.

[00:21:40]>> And then she gets into her middle late years here. She's she's a big woman.

[00:21:44]>> Big woman there again. What? Strong lady.

[00:21:47]>> What do you mean physically?

[00:21:49]>> Physically she laid a bloke out once.

[00:21:52]>> She laid a bloke out.

[00:21:54]>> It hit it.

[00:21:57]>> Yeah.

[00:22:03]Raymond Dunmore I knew a little bit because I lived with him briefly.

[00:22:09]He was stoned deaf. He painted a little bit. Um he was very um it was a recluse really. But um I know nothing about Hannah's life at all.

[00:22:23]>> Raymond and Hannah's surviving daughters, Elsie and Grace, still live in Ilkston.

[00:22:29]>> I can't describe Auntie Grace and Auntie Elsie, not in in the time I've got, but they are the only two living sisters of my mother. And so I'm quite anxious to speak to them about, you know, granddad and grandma and see if we can trace their history. And this is where Grace lives. So I'm going to take you in. All right. And wish me luck.

[00:22:48]>> I want Grace.

[00:22:52]>> They're here.

[00:22:54]>> Were they a happy couple?

[00:22:56]>> No, not really happy. They were like chalk and cheese. They never went out together, but they never argued. Never.

[00:23:05]Me and mom, she was so outgoing. The mom was always, you know, she was so outgoing. She was out most of the time.

[00:23:11]And when anybody used to come visit our place, dad used to go upstairs and started painting.

[00:23:17]In fact, he used to live more upstairs than downstairs. You're always painting.

[00:23:24]Despite living almost separate lives, Hannah and Raymond brought up four daughters.

[00:23:30]Peggy, Grace, Elsie, and Robert's mother, Joyce.

[00:23:36]>> They married and had you, Aunt Peggy, and my mom.

[00:23:43]>> And there was also two more, >> Barl and Pat.

[00:23:47]>> There was Barl and >> and also also a brother.

[00:23:53]But >> he's a mystery though.

[00:23:55]>> There was three extra.

[00:23:56]>> Yeah.

[00:23:57]>> Now, my mom's never mentioned them.

[00:23:59]>> No, but he was a bit of a mystery because we never knew uh anything about him until during the war. This uh fell in uniform came to see uh mom. And apparently this was Bert.

[00:24:15]>> No.

[00:24:16]>> And he came to find his mother.

[00:24:19]>> He'd never met grandma.

[00:24:21]>> No, he'd never met. And I think that's what it why he came. But he only stayed the day and then he went.

[00:24:28]>> Can you what he looked like?

[00:24:30]>> Yes. He was lovely.

[00:24:30]>> Was he really?

[00:24:31]>> Yeah.

[00:24:31]>> He was handsome. He was he got the most beautiful skin. Yes.

[00:24:36]>> No. Medium.

[00:24:38]>> Not to me. He medium.

[00:24:40]>> I wonder what happened to Bert.

[00:24:43]>> I wonder. Nobody knew.

[00:24:47]>> So Hannah had a son Bert before she was married.

[00:24:52]After her marriage to Raymond, she had two more children, Barl and Patricia, who both died in infancy.

[00:25:01]Aunts Robert never knew he had.

[00:25:05]>> I remember Pat ever so well because she always used to sing underneath the spreading chestnut tree. She would sit on the step and sing that. What?

[00:25:14]Patricia.

[00:25:15]>> Yeah, she always used it.

[00:25:18]>> Yeah. Underneath the spreading chestnut tree.

[00:25:21]Oh yeah, I know that song.

[00:25:23]>> Just do the little actions to it as well.

[00:25:27]>> He loved her and she loved me.

[00:25:30]>> It goes, don't it?

[00:25:32]>> Yeah.

[00:25:33]>> It was lovely. She was a lovely little girl. She was >> Oh, yeah. That was years back. which I remember very well.

[00:25:50]I was quite shocked when uh Grace and Elsie decided to let loose.

[00:25:56]Growing up here, people don't talk very much. They talk about the weather. They talk about the shopping, their illnesses, the ailments, but they don't talk about mysteries in families. You know, it's secret.

[00:26:16]I'm quite intrigued now to find out a bit more about the um mysterious Bert, as Elsie called him, and then these two young girls.

[00:26:28]It's something that they haven't wanted to talk about until this moment of release. this program, you know, me doing this. Oh, we can now say it, you know, because no one's ever talked about this as long as I can remember.

[00:26:44]There are no surviving photographs of the three children, but there may be documentary clues at the local registry office.

[00:26:57]Here is an unmarried mother which is my grandmother Hannah Hallworth needle maker and she gave birth to Herbert Dawson on the 18th of February 1919.

[00:27:26]Herbert Dawson.

[00:27:29]>> Unfortunately, there's no father recorded next to Bert's name in the register.

[00:27:35]Without this information, it's almost impossible to trace what happened to Hannah's son. This poor boy, where did he go?

[00:27:45]Who looked after him? Who brought him up? And he was the mystery boy that turned up in uniform one day and all the girls. I mean, it's like a movie.

[00:27:54]Herbert Dawson. My uncle Herbert.

[00:27:57]I wonder if he went off with the father.

[00:28:01]The father must have taken him.

[00:28:05]Robert's search for Bert can go no further.

[00:28:09]But he can find out more about Patricia and Barl.

[00:28:15]Barl Dunmore.

[00:28:18]He died of convulsions, bronco pneumonia, measles.

[00:28:26]She was 11. Oh, blime me. 11 months old.

[00:28:30]That was my mother's sister, >> 1933.

[00:28:41]And in 1939, the 17th of June, this is Patricia Anne Dunmore, female, 3 years old.

[00:28:51]She died of acute lowbar pneumonia.

[00:28:55]She was 3 years of age.

[00:28:58]I'm very sad.

[00:29:07]During the 30s, pneumonia was the biggest killer of children.

[00:29:12]The death of a child was far from unusual.

[00:29:16]In Darbisha, one in 20 babies died before the age of one.

[00:29:25]Um I'm just getting a completely different picture of my um my grandmother.

[00:29:30]What tragedy. What what tragedy behind the mask?

[00:29:33]She was wonderful with children. I mean, she really was. I remember her picking up my brother and my sister when when they were babies, big woman. And she'd nurse them and she could carry on doing things. She'd have the baby here. She'd be washing. She'd be cooking. Real earth mother.

[00:29:54]And that must have shattered her, you know, to to um to lose two children so young.

[00:30:02]But what I'm intrigued about now is I want to find out who's where.

[00:30:08]>> Yeah, I would love to know where they're buried.

[00:30:19]>> Turn left.

[00:30:21]>> Patricia's death certificate records her place of death as Stapleford, a village near Ilken.

[00:30:52]Kim Tate is the cemeteries officer at Stapleford.

[00:31:02]So Kim, what was this one?

[00:31:04]>> This is what we call the day book. This actually gives the information of the person buried in the graves.

[00:31:09]>> Mhm. Yes. So we're looking for June 1939.

[00:31:14]>> Further, April, May, June.

[00:31:18]>> May, June. June. Where is she?

[00:31:22]>> Oh, >> Patricia Dunmore.

[00:31:24]>> Patricia and Dunmore.

[00:31:27]This will give >> minor >> her status how old she was 2 and a2 years.

[00:31:32]>> And that's the date she was married the 20th of June.

[00:31:37]>> That's today.

[00:31:40]>> That's today. Gosh, >> it's today.

[00:31:44]>> I was smoking.

[00:31:48]>> Hang on a minute. That's today.

[00:31:51]>> That is rather uncanny, isn't it?

[00:31:57]Um, I don't think anyone planned that.

[00:31:59]>> No, >> no one could have planned that. That is that is seriously strange spiritual. My mother was a bit of a psychic and she would um >> she's made you come here today then.

[00:32:11]She's she wants a visit and today's the day. Okay. Okay. That is >> so can we find it?

[00:32:21]>> Yes.

[00:32:22]from that book.

[00:32:25]>> This is what we call the register of graves. And we can find the grave number 594.

[00:32:33]>> It's there.

[00:32:34]>> And Patricia is listed here.

[00:32:37]>> It's a multiple grave.

[00:32:38]>> It is. Yeah.

[00:32:40]What we call a public grave. So there won't be a memorial on the grave.

[00:32:46]Oh, >> she's buried with all these children.

[00:32:52]I mean ranging from 5 months, 16 months, 7 months, three and a half years.

[00:32:58]>> So these would be very poor people obviously.

[00:33:00]>> Yes.

[00:33:02]Having said that, it was common in that time to have public graves, more public graves than there were private graves.

[00:33:09]And as you can see, most of the burials in there >> were all children.

[00:33:12]>> Were children. Yeah.

[00:33:14]>> My aunt Patricia and more underneath the chestnut tree, my aunt said she used to sing. I wonder if there's a chestnut tree there. We'll be able to find the site.

[00:33:24]>> We can. Yes, >> we can. Yes, we're just at the top of the hill, so we can go and have a look.

[00:33:30]>> Wow, talk about surprises.

[00:33:46]Beneath the hillside at Stableford Cemetery lie hundreds of unmarked graves for families who could not afford private plots.

[00:33:59]I can't believe I'm standing here on the 20th of June 2006.

[00:34:06]67 years ago, my grandmother and grandfather would have stood here over their three and a half yearear-old daughter.

[00:34:20]>> But she's with all those children.

[00:34:22]>> All the children. Yes.

[00:34:23]>> All playing under a chestnut tree. Well, a lime tree.

[00:34:30]>> She almost got her wish.

[00:34:36]I only discovered that um I had another aunt, you know, a few hours ago. And now I'm standing over her grave site on the same day 67 years ago that she was actually interred here. And um it's just nice to know that she's with sharing this space with all these other children. And I've got a funny feeling that my mother's got me here on this very day. Cuz you couldn't have planned this.

[00:35:04]I couldn't have planned this. This was total coincidence. Or or what?

[00:35:21]My mom talks about her childhood with such love and affection. There it was just the best time. And uh this little one here missed it all.

[00:35:34]Patricia's 11-month-old sister Barl is buried in Ilkiston, also in a public grave.

[00:35:50]I found it very moving going to the grave of Patricia an I mean I felt genuine emotion but I didn't show it. I mean I didn't I did my best not to show it. Now if I was acting that if you'd said to me you're playing a character now and you are playing this guy who managed it then I would probably break down someone would write me a a scenario where but the real me will sit on it although I'm an actor I'm like they are here I'm I'm a very private and anonymous person and I'm not very good at being me.

[00:36:27]You'll be all right sitting in the back with Jamie.

[00:36:29]>> Robert's time in Ilkston has come to an end.

[00:36:32]>> All right. Well, listen. I'll see you a week on Thursday.

[00:36:34]>> Yes, a week on Thursday.

[00:36:36]>> I love you lots.

[00:36:37]>> Yeah, I'm glad you were saying.

[00:36:44]>> I'm glad he's gone.

[00:36:47]to army.

[00:36:58]Robert has one more mystery to solve.

[00:37:01]How his grandfather Raymond survived a major naval battle in the First World War.

[00:37:14]Robert's back at the National Archives to begin his research.

[00:37:19]>> I don't know much about Grandad Dmore.

[00:37:21]He didn't talk. He was a recluse and kept himself very much to himself.

[00:37:29]We were told as children he'd been blown up during a major battle in the First World War on HMS Prince of Wales. He was then rescued and then after being rescued that ship was blown up. So he was blown up twice within one day.

[00:37:49]The first clues are contained in Raymond's service record.

[00:37:58]Is my granddad Raymond Dunore.

[00:38:02]Oh my goodness me. He signed up at 15 years of age. 15.

[00:38:11]All these boats he's been on. Ganges, Edgar, Victory, Princess of Wales. Here we go. Prince of Wales, which he joined on the 13th of July 1914.

[00:38:22]Right down until 5th of April 1917.

[00:38:29]Goodness me. But very little information.

[00:38:35]The ship's log for Raymond's last day aboard HMS Prince of Wales should shed more light on the mystery.

[00:38:43]Oh, hello.

[00:38:46]Oh, an empty book.

[00:38:49]An empty book.

[00:39:01]Thursday, the 5th day of April, 1917, and after that it's empty.

[00:39:08]Ship paid off at 900 a.m.

[00:39:13]Ship paid off.

[00:39:16]What does that mean?

[00:39:19]Everyone paid. Everyone leaves.

[00:39:21]I wonder if ship paid off is nautical for sunk. No, you ridiculous.

[00:39:36]I think that sums up my uh information so far. Blackout.

[00:39:42]I got to go and find someone to explain this.

[00:39:48]I'm going to do that.

[00:39:55]At 3:00 they go to action stations.

[00:39:57]>> Captain Christopher Paige is head of the naval historical branch.

[00:40:00]>> The end the 5th of April, which we're looking at now, it says ship paid off.

[00:40:08]>> That means she was actually taken out of service.

[00:40:10]>> They scrapped her.

[00:40:11]>> Yes. She was an old battleship.

[00:40:14]>> Well, that's not very romantic, is it? I mean, I was led to believe and I do know that the HMS Prince of Wales was blown up. It I've seen footage somewhere.

[00:40:23]>> No, Prince of Wales was not blown up.

[00:40:25]She was scrapped. She survived uh she survived until April 1917 and then was paid off. Where I think you may we may be able to answer the conundrum about your grandfather is if we look here in the log for April 1915.

[00:40:42]>> Mhm. And you can see that if you go to the 24th, um they received on board 500 Australian troops.

[00:40:52]>> Yeah.

[00:40:53]>> And then the ship makes passage and she finishes up at um a place called uh Gabateepe, >> which is where >> Gabateepe is Gallipoli.

[00:41:07]It's a it's a cape uh off Gallipoli.

[00:41:10]>> Mhm. And what what has happened here is that the boats have been uh landed uh boats have been put down into the water to take in the first wave of 500 Australian shock troops. Now it's quite possible that your father your grandfather being an able seaman was a member of the boats companies the boats companies that rode the Australian troops ashore >> in April 1915. HMS Prince of Wales provided troops and cover for an amphibious assault at Gallipoli in western Turkey.

[00:41:50]In an effort to maintain secrecy, British sailors rode the invading troops to shore.

[00:41:56]Sailors like Raymond Dunore.

[00:42:00]When the Turks realize that people are coming ashore and they can see the boats in the water, they start opening fire and they open they fire at all the boats all the time.

[00:42:12]>> Sunday the 24th of April 19th >> 25th 25th of April 1915.

[00:42:18]>> Yes.

[00:42:19]>> So this is probably could be where he was blown up, rescued and blown up again.

[00:42:25]>> It could easily be. It could easily be.

[00:42:27]Boats were lost. Um, they were under fire from small arms when they were close, but they were also under fire from artillery. And a near miss from an artillery shell would turn a cutter over. And it's quite possible that his boat was overturned once, twice, perhaps even more.

[00:42:47]The target of the campaign was a series of forts lining the Dinell Straits, the naval gateway to the Turkish capital, Constantinople.

[00:42:58]If the guns could be silenced, then Constantinople would be at the mercy of the Royal Navy and Turkey, then Germany's ally, would be out of the war.

[00:43:16]The Imperial War Museum in London houses many important documents from the Gallipoli campaign.

[00:43:23]Among them, the diary of a midshipman, Douglas Dixon.

[00:43:29]Dixon records how he picked up rowing boats from HMS Prince of Wales and towed them to within striking distance of the Gipoly Coast.

[00:43:40]I took my toe to HMS Prince of Wales and embarked the troops. About half a mile off, the dawn began to show over the ridges.

[00:43:48]About 50 yards off the shore, the enemy opened fire with rifles and quickfireers.

[00:43:55]In some boats, only about a dozen troops landed. The rest were being killed or wounded, and dead men were hanging over the gunnels.

[00:44:04]The boat was being hit everywhere. One soldier had a bullet through his head behind his eyes and blinded him, but did not kill him.

[00:44:14]In the first landing, we landed them on a very exposed point and the trench was strewn with wounded and dead.

[00:44:23]But afterwards, we landed them 200 yds to the south where it was more sheltered. I took three toes from a transporting number two bullet. And while I was waiting to collect a fourth toe, a boat got a shell in her below the waterline and sank immediately.

[00:44:42]She was full of troops.

[00:44:44]My granddad was in this.

[00:44:49]She put and put my boat alongside and picked them all up. He picked my granddad up.

[00:44:56]I was backing out when a shrapnel burst over the boat and killed one of the soldiers just near me and a bullet went through the boat side just missing the stoker's head.

[00:45:09]I just managed to get back to the transport then dropped.

[00:45:16]Wow.

[00:45:18]My god.

[00:45:27]I've got this image of my granddad rowing a boat across that stretch of water.

[00:45:36]Madness.

[00:45:38]And the thing is what you try and imagine is yourself in this situation and how you would have behaved which is I would have completely lost it.

[00:45:47]Um but it's a different kind of people we're talking about completely different.

[00:45:56]And I wonder what their aspirations and hopes were you know and maybe in that small mining town they thought the Dinell sounded like a real adventure.

[00:46:40]Like his grandfather 90 years before him, Robert is traveling to the Dardels.

[00:46:56]In March 1915, 16 battleships attacked the forts guarding the Dardinell Straits.

[00:47:12]But the Allies had underestimated the Turkish defenses.

[00:47:21]>> Guns here, guns across there, mines in the in the sea. There's no there's no way you'd survive. You got to take your hat off to them. Really remarkable insanity to even try.

[00:47:35]So you've got this image of all these destroyers coming down this straight and then going by bloody hell, sir. Not going well here. And then about ships and you know all the way back. No chance.

[00:47:51]The attack by sea failed with the loss of three battleships and over 700 lives.

[00:47:59]Instead, the Allies embarked on a daring alternative on the other side of the peninsula.

[00:48:15]A massive land assault would take place here at Gallipoli.

[00:48:30]A month after the failed naval attack, 70,000 Allied troops would land at night on six beaches.

[00:48:39]The army would then sweep across the peninsula and capture the forts guarding the Dardinels.

[00:48:46]That was the theory anyway.

[00:49:01]I'm feeling or trying to imagine what my grandfather must have been feeling. And I'm also feeling a kind of sadness that I never really talked to him about it.

[00:49:12]But it's good I'm here. I mean, it's I feel like I'm paying my respects to him and acknowledging his life cuz he did have a life. He wasn't just an old deaf man. He really did have a life. It's not a life I would have wanted, but uh I'm here to acknowledge it.

[00:49:41]Robert's boat is sailing to where HMS Prince of Wales was anchored on the night of the invasion.

[00:49:50]Turkish historian Savash Karakas is an expert on the Galipol campaign.

[00:49:56]The operation started in silence. Uh they went down from the big battleships and the steamboat started to tow them.

[00:50:05]In the last distance all the ores were muffled not to make any noise and they were rowing in great uh silence without causing any splash.

[00:50:18]>> But in the darkness the first wave of boats drifted 2 km off course.

[00:50:26]They landed here under the sheer cliffs of what became known as Anzac Cove.

[00:50:34]>> They were like sitting ducks, you know, and the Turks started to snipe first the officers and this caused great panic.

[00:50:41]Everything went wrong starting with a landing in the wrong place.

[00:50:50]>> As battle intensified, the British Navy took on a new role.

[00:50:56]evacuating the wounded to hospital ships anchored offshore.

[00:51:00]>> The wounded were taken to the hospital ships waiting here. Of course, the rowing boats were under heavy shellfire.

[00:51:08]Some of them sang here while they were trying to hospitalize, trying to find a place for the wounded.

[00:51:21]Remarkably, 90 years after the Gallipoli campaign, the wreck of a British boat still lies in the waters of Anzac Cove.

[00:51:36]The wreck is 30 m below the surface.

[00:51:46]What are you saying here s?

[00:51:48]>> Um the divers are okay. They are descending now.

[00:51:54]>> It's coming into view now.

[00:52:04]There she is.

[00:52:07]Closer. Closer.

[00:52:16]It's a rowing boat.

[00:52:18]Yeah, it's a rowing boat.

[00:52:21]Wow.

[00:52:23]We can never know if this sank on the morning of the 25th of April or later in the campaign. Uh whether it sank while carrying fresh troops ashore or whether carrying wounded to the hospital ships, we don't know it because 48 boats like this were used. depending on the size, maybe 30 or 60 uh soldiers were filling them up.

[00:52:47]>> This amazing um amazing footage this I want to take this back to my family, let them see this. So your grandfather might have been in there 19 years ago.

[00:53:05]>> This this small vessel is like a time capsule, you know. It's it's a sad uh feeling. It's resting on the bottom of the sea and the soldiers that were crowding on it. There's no sign of them.

[00:53:20]But you see, I can only rejoice. You say it's very sad, but my grandfather escaped from that.

[00:53:26]>> You know, he was rescued, pulled aboard, >> went back to Prince of Wales, cup of tea, um back again.

[00:53:36]Maybe this is the uh boat that he was on.

[00:53:40]>> Hang on.

[00:53:40]>> Do you know the date?

[00:53:41]>> Hang on. Hang on.

[00:53:42]>> He's pointing to something. What's he pointing at?

[00:53:48]>> There's something there under the water line.

[00:53:56]>> That's a sh.

[00:53:57]>> Yeah.

[00:53:58]>> Look at this.

[00:54:00]>> God, that's the that could be the boat there.

[00:54:02]>> I've got it in the diaries. In the war diary. This guy wrote about this boat that was shelled and it sank immediately and he rescued and pulled in all the survivors onto his boat.

[00:54:14]This is it. This is one of This is the boat he's talking about. I I know it is.

[00:54:20]I mean, the description in that diary is is perfect. Fits it exactly. And that would have gone straight down. And you could imagine those men panicking in the dark.

[00:54:30]>> I sound like my mother now. Very superstitious. But I just got a very strange feeling. This boat was rode at some point by my grandfather.

[00:54:52]>> Looking at that dead boat down there on 90 ft down, I couldn't be sad when I was seeing that because he escaped.

[00:55:02]But you can only imagine what was going through his mind and what it took away from him.

[00:55:09]It must have been horrendous.

[00:55:24]I think I'm nearer to the truth now.

[00:55:28]>> I can understand why he became the recluse he did.

[00:55:33]And it wasn't just to do with the deafness. I think inside that head were many many terrible thoughts.

[00:55:39]>> So yeah, I think a piece of Raymond went here. A little bit of his spirit.

[00:56:13]The stalemate at Gallipoli continued for 259 days.

[00:56:20]Only in December 1915 did the order come to evacuate the demoralized troops.

[00:56:34]100,000 Allied and Turkish soldiers had been killed, half a million men wounded.

[00:56:53]There are so many cemeteries all over this cove.

[00:56:57]Uh, and it could have been that Raymond, my granddad, could have been buried here amongst the the fallen.

[00:57:08]It is a miracle really.

[00:57:11]Both grandfathers survived the First World War.

[00:57:18]Yeah. All in all, I think I'm fairly lucky to be here.

[00:57:23]I feel what I've learned from this is a sense of where I come from and being proud of where I come from. You know, I had to change things because I wanted to be an actor and therefore I had to change my speech.

[00:57:38]Little did I know by doing that I was actually changing my attitudes towards where I came from and to where I wanted to go, you know. And uh I suspect now I should have been a little bit prder of these people.

[00:57:59]I will carry on now. I think I need to find out a little bit more. But I think everyone should do this. It's it's very cathartic. It's very good for the soul because um you can't run away.

[00:58:15]You know, past will always be with you and their past and it's handed down.

[00:58:27]Families are fascinating and they're full of secrets and surprises. And there's no such thing as an ordinary family.

[00:58:52]If you would like to know more about members of your family who served in the military, visit the BBC website. You'll find detailed advice and helpful guides to get you started with your research.

[00:59:02]Go to bbc.co.uk/familyhistory.