A PLEA for help in tracing a missing branch of a family tree has been answered after appearing in the Redditch Standard.
Arnold Chedney from Hall Green contacted our office on behalf of his son Steve, who had reached a dead end when trying to trace the descendants of his great great aunt, Emily Louise, and her sons Eric and Clifford.
He didn’t even have a surname to work off, so he asked his dad, now in his 80s, to get in touch with us.
All Arnold knew was that the two brothers had been boat builders working at the old Imperial Cinema in Bell Lane, Studley.
We duly put an appeal in the paper and received a response from not only Eric’s son Colin, but also one of his old workmates.
Colin of course was able to not only put a surname to Emily Louise, Eric and Clifford, that of Williams, but also remembered visiting Arnold’s mum’s house as a small boy, as well as naming a third brother, Ray.
“I remember going to his mother’s over the Christmas period, so I must have met him – he was older than me, and I’m sure he had a brother, but we’re going back a few years,” said Colin, who still lives in Studley.
“My dad was actually a cabinet maker by trade and started building cabin cruisers and racing boats when that side of the business dried up.
“One of the boats he built was a racing catamaran, made for a woman and I remember it was special because she’d done it without the knowledge of her husband.”
We also had a call from a Barry Harris, who also lives in Studley, who used to work with the brothers at the old cinema.
“They had a family business in the old in the old picture house,” he said.
“At one point there were about 15 of us there but as times got tough they had to let people go, but they kept me on and went on to boat building.
“They were lovely people, I remember Eric and his wife Joan and Clifford well.”
After checking first, we passed on their details to Arnold, who said: “This is absolute marvellous, better than I ever imagined. Thank you.”
