Daniel Radcliffe Reveals Sh0cking Family Truth That No One Knew—You Won’t Believe What He Just Shared!
Very proud to see you. Hello. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. How are you? Nice to meet you. Daniel Radcliffe is world famous as Harry Potter, star of the eight-part blockbuster movie series. And after numerous acclaimed film, TV, and stage roles, he’s one of the most popular and recognizable actors on the planet.
Daniel’s own childhood was nothing like the orphaned wizard boy he played in Harry Potter. He was brought up by his mom and dad in West London. We’re a very like tightknit kind of unit as a family. My mom was a was a casting director and my dad was a literary agent after they finished their acting careers.
So, you know, plays and theater was very much a part of growing up. But they never they definitely didn’t like want me to become an actor. The reason I ended up going for an audition for something in the first place was just because like I was really not great at school. I think I felt very sort of mediocre when I got the Potter films.
It changed the whole family’s life really. Daniel was just 11 when he was catapulted to fame as Harry Potter. Over the next 10 years, he grew up alongside the fictional hero he played, becoming an icon for the generation who grew up watching him. When I look back now, to get a kid through what happened to us with as much humor and calm as my parents did is very, you know, I think very impressive.
have realized, you know, how little I know about my family. As far as I know, on my dad’s side, there were four brothers who sort of, I think, all fought in the First World War. On my mom’s side, my great-grandmother was Ry, and there was English, but of uh Eastern European Jewish extraction, I think. Actually, I’m not sure.
I can even remember the name of my greatgrandfather on that side. I want to say felt, but that’s not right. See, this is what I mean. This is very embarrassing. I know that he ran a jewelry shop and then there was like a robbery and I think he took his own life. Um, so yeah, that’s that’s the little bit that I know about the family.
if I can find out anything about other people in our ancestry and if there are any parts of them that I feel like are echoed in either me or in my parents, I think that’s what I’m going to find the most sort of exciting So, this is this is of note from my mom. Um, hi Dan.
Here are a few things I dug out to get you started. Granny Pat’s photo album and the family tree she drew just before you were born. Um, you’re the bump. Loads of love, Mommy. This is a photo of my great-grandmother, Ray, with my mom’s mom, uh, Granny Pat, who is just got a it’s like it looks like somebody’s put a a punk into a Victorian child’s dress.
Um, cuz she’s just got this baby mohawk. You really can tell that it’s Granny Pat and assume that is Ray and my my grandmother again. That’s a very nice photo of Ray. She’s smiling in that one. I remember certainly towards the end of her life, she lived with my mom and grandmother and they all lived together. All right. Oh, wow. Granny Pat.
She has um she she has uh in a very um dramatic way has titled this the Gersian dynasty. Um which is you know maybe I’m putting it a bit strongly. Okay. Um so yeah there’s there’s me bump then Alan and Marcia my parents. Um and then the previous generation was Pat Pat Gresham. That is an anglicized version of the much more Jewish name Gersian.
Or maybe it was just my grandmother’s decision to to change her name. But I wonder when that switch happened. And then going back just one generation, we get Ry Jacobs, my greatg grandmother, who married Sam Samuel. He took his own life who apparently was one of nine children and wow he was the first one to be born in England which is definitely a surprise.
All these nine children are the children of Jesse Greenwell and Lewis Gerson my great greatgrandparents. But it says Jesse Greenwell married Lewis Gersian brackets in South Africa. I had always assumed that going back that far we would be from Eastern Europe. But this family tree very clearly says South Africa.
So this was made 30 years ago and anyone underlined in red was still alive at the time. Still here, not dead yet. So, there’s probably some living relatives who could help out. Daniel’s in North London on his way to meet a descendant of his great great grandparents, Jesse Greenwall and Louis Gershon, who’s also called Louis Gershon.
I’m just fascinated by the fact that I have a relative that I didn’t know existed. Hopefully modernday Lewis Gershon will will have a lot more information about the family and maybe what the full story is about South Africa. Hi Daniel. Louis Gian. Hello Lou. Come in. Good. Thank you very much. Did you know that we were related? Do you Absolutely not.
All right. So I have uh been given this family tree which was drawn up by my grandmother. So Lou, if I can ask where did where do you fit in on all this tree? So my dad was the youngest of the nine siblings. Bobby married Hannah and they had one son who was nameless but it’s me. It’s you. Yeah. Louis Gersian.
My grandmother would been your first cousin. Y So what do you know about your grandfather? My great greatgrandfather Louis Gerson. Well, what was in my flat where I grew up all my life was a picture of Louis Gersian. And I’m now going to show you Louis Gersian. Oh, wow. Now, if you look at Louis Gersian and you look at Daniel Ratcliffe, Yeah.
there is not much difference. That’s a Gersian face. You look more like him than I do. And I’m named after him. Look at you. It’s the same bloody face. Yeah. Just need to shave the rest off. You need to bit tidy up a bit, Daniel. But apart from that, you’re all right. But look at that.
And look, it’s it’s amazing. That’s incredible. Sorry, let me just have another look. I mean, around the their eyes and the eyebrows, that’s where I get them from. That’s really remarkable. Is there anything else you can tell me about Louis? because I I on the tree all I know is that he met or married Jesse Greenwall in South Africa it says but that’s that is all I know right there is a census in the in the early 1900s which you must have a look at okay it’s 1901 Hackne although it was Hackne it was probably a bit more Stamford Hill which was quite
posh in those days oh right okay wow there is one very interesting thing here if you look where people were born where everyone was born here and then Louie. Huh. Yeah. So, apparently Louie Gerson was born in Germany. I had it in my history that we were from Russia and obviously and then it says Jesse, Louis was born in Russia.
Correct. Wow. And then look down their children. John was born in Cape Town. So Anne was born in Kimberly and then Julie was born in Orange. What was their activity out there? Is that Well, he was something in diamonds and that’s what that’s what was going on there in South Africa. Okay. Wow. Daniel’s great greatgrandfather, Louisie Gershon, was one of thousands of treasure hunters who flooded into the area around Kimbley, South Africa in the late 1800s after diamonds were discovered there. By the time of
the 1901 census, Louie and his family had moved to London. Then there he is, Samuel. Samuel. That’s my greatgranddad, Samuel. age as of last birthday. Seven first born in the UK. So yeah, Cape Town, Kimbley, Orange Free State, Hackne. Wow. By this point from years working in diamonds in South Africa, Louis Gershon then came back and became a dealer in jewelry.
You can just about see it say there. Employer, worker or own account? Own account. Thank you very much. Means he owns his own business. Right. Do you know anything more about the the business set up in Hatton Garden? But I think you should really have to take a trip to Hatton Garden to find out what’s going on. I think that Yeah, I think that sounds like a good idea.
In London city center, Hatton Garden is the historic home of the jewelry trade. When I think about the life that Louis Gersel must have had, I mean, if he went from Germany to South Africa, then to upsticks again and moved to a London and set up in the jewelry business, there’s a huge element of risk in that.
I’d always had some awareness of a jewelry link in our family. I’d love to know more about that. Just off the main street, Daniel’s meeting Hatton Garden historian and author Rachel Likensstein. Hi, Daniel. Lovely to meet you. Lovely to meet you, Rachel. By the kind of turn of the century, all the world’s rough diamonds were coming here to Hatton Garden.
So, I’ve got a document here to show you. And this is dated 1905. All right. And you can see here, diamond cutters, setters, and workers. And see if you can find your your family name. There’s um yeah, Gersian and Shia. So Gersian and Shia were then based at 35 Hatton Garden and they would have been working in a little workshop much like the one that we’re going to visit here.
Daniel’s meeting diamond mounter Stuart Rucker. Daniel, come through. Okay. Uh these are just a few things that I’ve been working on. Wow. How has the technique for this changed much in the last 100 years since the great great granddad was doing it? A lot of it is very similar. This is what he would have done.
Sort of traditional hand making with you know tools, filing, shaping with hammers. It’s amazing the delicacy of what you produce with hammers and you know the and files. It’s mini engineering really. Right. Oh wow. That’s beautiful. So Daniel, we’ve got some more documents here that tell you about Louis Gershon in Hatton Garden in the industry.
1917 June 19th. a copy of register of directors or managers of the African wholesale jewelers. He’s realized that if you start to import goods from elsewhere that are already made up, he can make a larger profit. Oh, right. Clever Louie. Yeah. If you have a look Oh, right. Yeah. at how much the company is worth. Okay.
By that time, that’s,000. £10,000 which is about equivalent to about half a million pounds. Oh wow. In today’s money. So he’s doing really really well. Yeah he is. I was wondering yeah do you know anything about the further involvement of my greatgrandfather Sam. If we move on to this document here and then here we have my greatgranddad Samuel who is 17 jeweler’s apprentice.
So just have a look at the next document. Oh wow. Certified copy of an entry of marriage. Samuel Gersian, age 27 years, diamond merchant. There you go. He had progressed. Wow. Oh, he married him. Rachel Diner, known as Ry. I I never knew her name was Rachel. I’ve always always just been Ry. St. Vincent’s Road, South End on Sea.
And oh, and that’s interesting as well. So this is what year is this? 1921. By this point, Louis Gersian is now deceased. Yeah, that’s sad. Well, this is this is amazing. And I um Yeah. So, I suppose if I if I want to know more, I should uh should probably go to Southen. I think so. I know what a point of pride the business must have been because it was a business that had been really successful.
Having seen on that last document that they ended up in Southoun, I’m intrigued to know more about my great-grandmother and great-grandfather Sam. In Southoun, Daniel’s meeting historian Alan Dean. Lovely to meet you. Really good to meet you, too. Thank you so much for coming. I’ve got some photographs, studio photographs taken in Southoun of Sam and Ray.
Whoa. They were taken in the late 1920s. Okay. I’ve seen more photos of Ray, none of her at this age. Um, but I’ve never I don’t remember ever seeing just a a good close front on shot of Samuel. That’s amazing. It’s funny to think I’m the same age as he is in this photo. I do feel like a pipe probably does put a few years on you.
So yeah. Do you know do you know why Samuel ended up coming out here? Well, your great grandmother Ry, her family were already here. So the Jacobs came first and then the Gersians. Absolutely. Okay. A year after getting married in May 1922, Samuel and Ray had their first daughter, Patricia.
7 years later, they had another daughter, Luella. Actually, hold on. My handy travels size family photo album. Uh, I think I’ve got There we go. So, this picture, which must have been taken right after my grandmother was born, would have been taken here in South End somewhere. Yeah, that’s Athl Lodge. See, I assumed because it was the word lodge, I assumed it was a hotel or something they were staying at, but that was that they were living there permanently, were they? That’s why people wanted to move here.
The grand Yeah, the trees outside and of course the the seafront. Do you know how anything about sort of the business was still going at that point? Yeah, sure. I’ve got a page from Kelly’s post office directory here. And if you find Hatton Garden 22 there we go. Ah, now yes.
Gersian brothers manufacturing jewelers. That’s interesting. So when is this from? 1930. So your great grandfather. Yes. Was now in business with his brother and commuting every day to work to Hatton Garden. I don’t know what became of the business, but seems to have been a sort of unqualified success so far.
They seem really happy at the moment in in terms of everything we’ve been hearing. There’s no reason to suspect anything might be a miss, but you know, I I know that at at some point Samuel um killed himself. I know there was a robbery, but yeah, I definitely I want to I want to try and find out more about that and about him.
Daniel knows his greatgrandfather’s business. Gersian brothers was robbed sometime in the 1930s back in Hatton Garden. He’s looking online to see if he can find out what happened. Search night raid on jewelers safe ripped open missing. Yeah. I mean it was like a it was a heist.
made the papers up and down the country. February 1936, jewels were stolen from a safe in the premises of Mess’s Gersian Brothers Jewelers in Hatton Gardens, EC on Monday night. On the floor were crowbars, and the safe had been cut open. Wow. The majority of missing articles are mounted jewelry such as rings, necklaces, and brooches. It It never sounded this dramatic when it was being recounted before.
It was like, “Oh yeah, some stuff was done.” Like, there was a wrong, but there was nothing about like there being the papers being all over it or, you know, it being a team of people cutting open a safe, you know, that news. I mean, I would love to find out what happened and if they ever caught anyone. This is a much bigger deal than I thought that it had been.
The robbery of Gersham brothers was investigated by the police. To learn about the case, Daniel’s meeting criminologist Dick Hobs. Lovely to meet you. 22. Number 22. Let’s have a look. Lead the way. Thank you so much. This is the scene of the crime. Wow. This is where it was. And up here is the actual office where uh your greatgrandfather had his business, Gersian.
Unbelievable. There he is. As you can see, it’s pretty small space. There’s even a a safe here. Yeah, as there would have been. I was mad to think he was in this room almost 100 years ago. You’re talking about a robbery that on today’s money Yeah. is talking about a quarter of a million a quart of a million pound robbery.
So this isn’t uh it’s not petty crime. That’s that’s a massive amount. I’ve got the file here. But what’s crucial when we when we look at this case is there’s absolutely no evidence as to how the perpetrators got into the building. So there’s no breakins, there’s no broken windows, there’s no false doors outside.
So right, that becomes an ongoing problem in the investigation of this of this particular crime. But if you look at the Hatton Garden heist of just a few years ago, just over the road, there was no sign of breaking and entering into that building either. Right? But this is the conclusion that the police came to.
Okay. There was every reason to believe that the allegation of office breaking and lasseny was bogus and possibly put forward for the purposes of a fraudulent insurance claim. Under the circumstances, no crime was recorded. Wow. The police have decided that that this is a bogus robbery. Yeah.
But they’ve not got enough evidence to take proceedings against the Gersians, right, for for fraud. From a police point of view, the the Gersians had a bit of previous here. And you can see if you read Okay. Yeah. An identical case of office breaking occurred at these premises on the night of 20th of March, 1922. Property valued at £9,000 was stolen and the claim was eventually settled.
Um, a further successful claim for £1,855 was made by Edward Gersian in 1932. So that would be Sam’s brother Edward, right? So yeah, they’ve come this is they’ve got a bit of history. The Gersians have been in dispute with the insurance companies three times in a 15-year period. So the police were definitely um suspicious that it could have been an inside job of some kind.
But it’s worth pointing out that crime in Hatton Garden was not unusual, right? But in terms of the the way the police are are dealing with the Gersian at this point, if if you look at this piece, this paragraph here, I think it’s from police informants. Dear sir, one hopes that the criminal investigation department is taking into account the hypothesis that Gersian committed the robbery himself.
General terms, huh? um that he is a Jew and that Jews are so frequently responsible for the bringing down of their own business premises and thefts so-called committed in their offices. There’s there’s a lot to dig into in that one sentence. Um, oh, I guess it it absolutely was the time, but it’s also still very jarring to um see see him being a Jew to be taken as as a piece of evidence in itself is is is Yeah.
But that that might help to explain why the police had decided it was bogus. In 1930s Britain, as in the rest of Europe, hostility towards Jews was on the rise. Oswald Mosley’s fascist party embraced an increasingly Nazi style of anti-semitism. In 1936, the year of the Gersian robbery, this erupted into violence in London when fascists clashed with anti-fascist demonstrators in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street.
My greatgrandfather Sam, is there any any news on what’s happened to him in all this? Well, here’s a a newspaper report featuring a photograph. Whoa. Wow, that’s an amazing photo. That’s not in the family albums. Mr. Samuel Gersian fainted on learning that thieves had cut open a safe and stolen jewelry. Wow.
So, the press photographer was there outside. Yes, right. There were photographers there on the day. There’s another article here which uh explains what’s happened. Oh wow. Rob’s jeweler too ill to talk. Mr. Samuel Gerson, jeweler and diamond expert has been lying ill in his home for 3 days.
Detectives have been waiting to interview Mr. Gerson, but he was still too ill to see the police. I I think one of the things worth saying here is that part of the context of the robbery was that the Gersians were already in debt for approximately the same amount of money that was stolen. Right. Funny that. Yeah. So if you’re looking for a motive, that could be the motive if if that’s what happened.
But to hear that the police were not taking this seriously, right? and the suggestion that the insurance company weren’t going to pie out, that’s going to add to the pressure that Samuel was under. Yeah. And and especially because of the intense media scrutiny that was also now a a factor in his life.
Yes. I mean, what do you think? Do do you think do you think that’s that that do you think that Sam was was faking that when he finds heed? I mean, I suppose I worry because I I know that Sam uh took his own life and so that makes me wonder if that was, you know, guilt. But by the same token, it could just have been that, you know, once this is written about you and once there is this kind of speculation about you, he was probably going, “My livelihood’s over.
” you know, that that everything he’s worked for and that his father had worked for as well has sort of been, you know, destroyed pretty quickly potentially. His death was reported and and there may be something that that you can look at to to answer some of those questions. Okay. Yeah, I would definitely like to do that cuz he’s sort of the still the one person that I feel like I’ve I’ve seen pictures of him and I’ve seen his signature, but I feel like his is the one voice that I haven’t quite like heard yet in all this.
There are a lot of details around the the robbery of my greatgranddad’s business that are a little bit suspect. No forced entry on the door, the amount of debt they were in, and the prior insurance claims over the last sort of 15 years. I tend to think that Sam and his brother maybe together decided to try and defraud the insurance company by staging a robbery.
Clearly, the effect that this one had on him was not good. So, yeah, I want to know more about that. Daniel’s greatgrandfather Samuel died near Oldbury Common in Hertfordshire to find out what happened. Daniel’s come here to meet historian Allison Haggard. Hi D. Lovely to meet you. You too. And one of the things we found is the coroner officer’s report which details the the basic Okay. Wow.
details about his death. Yes. Thank you. When Oh, sorry. 8th of July, right? So that was about 5 months after the after the after the robbery named Samuel Gerson died in a motor car on Oldbury Common at 7:40 p.m. Um if any known illness or injury existed before death state if possible the nature of it and its duration was suffering from shock for about 14 days in February 1936.
So, I had heard that he had been unable to talk to the police for 3 days, but it’s it’s interesting to see it. Obviously, that state sort of lasted in some form for another for 14 days total. And there was a witness statement from Samuel’s brother, Edward. Oh, right. As you can see, it’s very difficult to read.
So, we have done a transcript there for you. Oh, great. Thank you. Yeah. Um, Edward’s witness statement. The diamond business had been burgled in February. There was a bankruptcy petition on the file against the firm which has been held over a pending settlement of the insurance company. He has been very worried since February. He told his wife he had a meeting of his firm’s creditors to attend.
He was wonderfully happy at home. Then he signed. Wow. But what is the the bankruptcy petition? What what does all that mean? He will be waiting to see whether the insurance company is going to pay up. Otherwise, it might lead to bankruptcy. Okay. Every single line is a bullet point of essential information apart from he was wonderfully happy at home.
Yeah. Which really stands out. Very striking, isn’t it? Yeah. I think you know 1930s a man would have been very much seen as a provider and a protector of his family. So anything that threatened that would have been, you know, very very stressful. Yeah. Um I feel like like it should make a difference to me whether he was innocent or guilty of this.
But I I still feel sorry for him just because he, you know, anyone in the wrong situation can get themselves feeling like they’ve been backed into a corner. And that’s um you know, I find it hard to be angry at somebody for that. Um we did find one other document um in the report. There was actually a suicide note um which was found on the body in a handwritten notebook.
So I don’t know if you want to read that but if you do perhaps you’d you know want to go off and perhaps read it on your own. Yeah thank you very much. Um yeah I definitely do want to read it. Doll darling is how he starts the note. So that was his um name for my great-grandmother. I cannot face bankruptcy after 22 years of trading.
So, I’m taking the coward’s way out. But I can assure you, my angel but I can assure you, my angel, to leave a girl like you is more than a wrench. I worship and adore you. The loveliest, truest, and noblest wife and companion and comforter you have been to me in my trouble. And it’s it’s it’s it’s so funny to feel this connection to somebody that you don’t know.
and just in in how much he loves his wife. You know, the way he says things is is not dissimilar to some things I would say and things I might call people. You have given me 15 years of happiness in our married life and we have been blessed with two darling girls. But I can’t take worry as you know. But I can’t take worry as you know.
my love. And these last 5 months have pulled me down, you just want to sort of reach into the past and just go like whatever you’re going through it it you have so much to offer the people who are around you still, they still would all have loved you. I don’t want to go, but I’m afraid of the future. God keep you all well. have no regrets.
You have been more than marvelous. I love you, darling. Don’t fret or grieve, but just give me a thought sometimes. Your loving and heartbroken husband, Nukes, which I suppose is his nickname. It’s so sad that he was it was just like, you know, everything in everything in one part of his life was great. He seemed so happy.
He really does seem so happy at home. And it’s so sad that whatever was going on in the other half of his life has completely overwhelmed that. and talking about worry like you know I I I worry a lot and I have you know I I I I sort of have a lot of anxiety and and and can really get lost in that sometimes and it’s just sad to think of that getting so bad for him that he had to do this but the overwhelming sense of anything is just like how much he loved Ry.
All I can think of now is like what this would have done to Ry and Pat, my my grandmother. To find out what happened after Samuel’s death, Daniel has come back to Southoun to meet Alan Dean again. I’ve got some documents that I think it’s important for you to see. This one here is from the Daily Express.
All right. Robbed jewel man, dead in car, diary note to wife. At this time, 1936, suicide was still very much a taboo, but also easily to become sensationalized by the press. So, this really gives you a sense of the scandal that was going to impact on the family. Wow. I’ve got another document here.
Oh, yes. Gresham, change name. It says on the front, I the undersigned Ray Diana Gresham do hereby renounce and abandon the name of Rachel Dina Gersian and in lie thereof assume the name of Ray Diana Gresham. Wow. Um this document is dated the 29th of July 1936. So that is this just 3 weeks after Samuel killed himself.
That is that is fast moving. It does make sense of the sort of the mystery of when the name changed from Gersian to Gresham happened and assumed it was sort of more to do with anglicizing to to hide our Jewishness. Actually, it was just to try and turn over a new leaf and and outrun this scandal.
I was aware that he had killed himself, but again the the the no idea the the the sort of the lengths that it was reported on or the the wide reach of the story that’s all complete news. I don’t know. I think that must be testament to some really extraordinary um shielding work going on from from Rey to protect her daughters and then her daughters to protect my mom.
Over a year after Samuel’s death, the insurance claim that had been made following the Gersian robbery was settled. Sam’s death was, you know, the act of a man in a in a situation that he found too desperate to to contemplate anymore. Rey picked herself up and moved on with her life. I’ve I’ve always been surrounded by strong women in my life and it’s fascinating and exciting to find that there was maybe the strongest of all of them was this woman I knew almost nothing about um who really you know Ray really really
set the tone and paved the way and allowed everybody to come after her to to have that same strength by by you know absorbing so much of the damage of this event and and sort of choosing to bear that burden herself. As much as this is about the tragedy and the extreme fallibility of one of my male ancestors, it’s also the story of the triumph of all the women that followed him.
Daniel’s father, Alan, grew up in County Down, Northern Ireland. Daniel’s now heading to the family hometown of Banbridge, 30 mi outside Belfast. It’s very nice to be here. It’s very nice to be about to find out more about my dad’s side of the family cuz I don’t know very much. I had a a great great uncle Ernie who went off in the First World War when I did a film called My Boy Jack that was all set in the First World War.
I kept a picture of him in my trailer um as just a sort of little, you know, personal kind of connection to the period. Believe he had three brothers, so there were four of them that went off together, but uh yeah, I don’t know if they all came back, if none came back. um or what certainly what their experiences were out there.
I have no idea. My auntie Linda, she is a repository of lots of family information. So, I think she’ll be a very good starting point. Daniel’s aunt Linda now lives just outside Banbridge, a few miles from her childhood home. Hi. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Great to see you. Good to see you. Great to see.
Thank you so much for doing this. Right. Come in. Yes. Yes. Come ahead. It really is now, isn’t it? It is. Yeah. And Daniel, I’ve looked at a few photographs for you. Yes, please. So, um I’m going to start off with this one here, which shows you as a very young baby with Granny Elsie. Uh trying to eat her face.
Trying to eat her face. Do you recognize this lady? Is that Is that Granny Elsie’s mom? Yeah. And this is a photograph of you with Oh, wow. My great-g grandandmother. Yeah, that’s right. Her first name was Florence, but all members of her family always called her Flo. Okay. I didn’t know that I’d met her.
I’m really glad that I met her. Even if I don’t have a memory of it, I’m really glad that we did. This one here is is interesting because this one shows Oh, wow. Flo’s mommy and daddy. So, Elizabeth and Tommy are your great great grandmother and grandfather. Wow. Yeah. This is a photograph of your great great uncle Ernie.
Wow. He was very handsome. He was, wasn’t he? Yeah. Ernie McDall, and he was Flo’s brother. Right. She had four brothers who all served in World War I. This is your great great uncle Jimmy. Jimmy. Okay. Was the eldest son. And this is Joe. So this is your great great uncle Joe. Right.
And that’s Edmond. He was the youngest of the boys. And that’s Ernie. That’s amazing. I do have something here which I think you might find very very interesting. I think I would judging by what’s on the envelope. Yeah. Original letters. Yeah. These letters Daniel are from your your great great uncle Ernie.
Oh wow. I’m going to be very very careful with this struggle. These have been in in the family for a very long time. Uh they were given to your great granny Flo. Um and she she looked after them and treasured them. Treasured them um dearly for many for many years. Um so honored to even be touching these.
Oh well. Thank you so much, Linda. You are very you are very very welcome and it’s just a privilege to be able to to pass them on to you Daniel. Daniel’s great great grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth McDall had 10 children. The youngest was Daniel’s greatg grandmother Flo.
Four of her brothers Jimmy, Joe, Ernie, and Edmund served in the First World War. In Belfast, Daniel is reading his great great uncle Ernie’s letters. Dear mother, I am writing an answer to your kind and welcome letter which I received all right. We have snow lying on the ground here as it is very cold.
But don’t think I’d be starving for I have three blankets to be on at night. So I am not so bad. Just the fact that he wants him to know like, you know, I’m fed and I’m warm and it’s not as bad as you probably think it is, even though I’m sure it was. This is about all I have to say at present from your loving son Ernie to my dear mother and father.
He’s so he’s written a little X over all the girls’ names, Annie, Mother, and Flo, my greatg grandmother. It’s extraordinary to see the real Ernie and get to know him a little bit through these letters. And this one is to Earnest from his mother. And it made me very happy to see that you are well home. I have got no more word from Joe yet.
And Jim is not out of hospital as he had as he this is very bluntly phrased. Um Jim is not out of hospital as he has had to get a bit of shelter out of his head. So that’s Ernie’s brothers. Um but I hope the Lord will bring you all together once more to the same old home, to the same loving mother that you left behind.
Now I didn’t expect to hear my great great grandmother’s voice in in in these letters. Trying to work out who this one’s from because there’s a lot of mentions of Ernie in it. And this is sent from Banbridge, September 2nd, 1914. My dear Ernie, my heart was sore. Oh, when I had to come into the house, but someday we will give them all a good day when we are getting married.
Won’t we love? From your ever loving sweetheart. Oh, hold on, Genie. Wow, someone was very keen on Ernie. That’s a great letter. I mean, it’s just willingness to come true by writing it. So, this is another letter from Genie again. No one can say to you, Ernie, that you are going with a flirt for. She’s very funny, Genie.
Um, no one can say to you, Ernie, that you were going with a flirt. For I love you, Ernie, with all my heart and will till death do his part. Still just so in love with him. I I want to find out I want to find out what happened to all the brothers if possible. And I’d like to know more about him and Genie because they seem sweet.
Um, and I wonder if they ever got to marry. I really hope they did based on those letters. To find out what more the letters can reveal, Daniel’s meeting First World War historian Jessica Meer. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for coming talking to me today. Pleasure. Awesome. Let’s shall we, shall we? Okay, here we go.
So these are the letters from my great greatuncle Ernie. There’s a huge amount of personality to these letters which is really wonderful. Collections of letters like this aren’t actually that uncommon because this is the first generation uh of working-class young men and young women as well for whom education have been compulsory up to the age of 14.
So, they’re literate and the war is is a point at which letter writing sort of takes off. They’re not just sending letters, they’re sending parcels. The second parcel you sent me came in nice time for I was sitting in a dugout and I hadn’t had a smoke and wasn’t very well pleased with with the world in general. Oh, man.
when a fellow brought me your parcel and I could have jumped with joy. During the First World War, parcels and letters from home were a vital morale booster, regarded to be as important to soldiers welfare as food and supplies. two billion letters and over a 100 million parcels were sent during the course of the war with letters taken just 2 or 3 days to reach the western front.
So the the date on this first letter is uh the 9th of October 1914. So that’s incredibly early into the war. Yes. When war breaks out in 1914. He’s in the reserves. Oh, and the reserves um are there to be mobilized very very quickly. That is why so early in the war Ernie is then sent overseas. Okay.
But the records of his military service have been lost. So most of what we know about his service is from these letters. Oh, this is a defin this is a much more scrappy piece of paper that he’s found somewhere. Um, dear mother, I am writing you this letter to let you know that I am in England and I am in hospital in Newcastle on time with my feet.
They were frostbitten. That first winter was cold and wet and an awful lot of men got frostbite. He recovers from frostbite. He goes home for a period of leave to recuperate and then uh he’s sent back to his unit. Um and then if you take a look at this, you were wanting to know what part of my leg I got wounded on.
Well, it is the calf of my leg. It went through the muscle and missed the shin bone by a third of an inch. Wow. But I will tell you all about that next Saturday. Oh, fun. Next Saturday. Um, this is all at present. De mother from your loving son. So, yeah. So, he’s he’s he’s had Frost by now and he’s now been shot in the leg.
Yes. It would appear, interestingly enough, that when he gets that gunshot wound that he encounters Joe, who helps him back to the regimental aid post. Wow. And if you look at this, um, I wish Joe was home for he is a good fellow. I was so very sorry when he left me in the dressing station.
It was dark when he was carrying me. He had to jump backwards across a drain with me on his back. I thought he would have fell in, but he didn’t. And he got himself gathered. All right. Wow. It’s not entirely clear whether they were in the same unit, but they were both serving in the same regiment. Yeah.
Gives you a real sense of, you know, Yeah. brothers looking out for each other in a very tough situation. We’ve got a letter from uh Ernest mother, your great great grandmother, which is what makes this collection really quite special. And then the other thing we have, which is really unusual, these letters from Jeie um which are lovely.
They’re so passionate. They really are. They’re just like old what I imagine love letters to be. I love you all the time. I love you, Ernie, with a love that will never die. So even in the midst of war, life goes on. Yeah, love carries on. Yeah. Um, in very difficult circumstances. It is amazing. This is the last dated letter that we have, the latest date that we have a letter from.
Okay. 28th of May, 1916. My dear mother and father, I am writing you these few lines, hoping they will find you all well. From your loving son Ernie to my dear mother and father, bye-bye. and tell Flo I don’t forget. Tell Flo I don’t forget about the hapony I owe her.
But that is great that he’s still like remembering a debt to his youngest sister. He’s written so regularly for nearly 2 years. Um and then they just stop. And then they just stop. Oh dear. That doesn’t bode well. Yeah. Back in his family’s hometown of Banbridge, Daniel hopes he can discover what happened to his great great uncle Ernie and his brothers.
It’s hard to believe that someone would just stop writing halfway through a war, especially somebody who seemed so dedicated to keeping in touch with all of his family. I imagine that he might have, you know, died in combat. Oh. Oh, okay. This is a role of honor to the glory of God and in proud and loving memory of all the following men from this parish who in response to the call of their king and country laid down their lives in the Great War 1914 to 1919.
Yeah, there’s Ernie. Ernest McDow. So, none of the other brothers are there, though. So, I assume that means Ernie was the only one who who got killed. To find out more about Ernie and his brothers, Daniel is meeting genealogologist Fiona Fitz Simons. I’ve learned that Ernie did in fact die during the war.
Um, do you know anything about the the circumstances of his death? This is a letter written by somebody who was there with Ernie at the moment that he died and he sent it to your great great grandmother. Oh, wow. It’s very old. Yeah, this is from rifleman James O’Brien. And it says, “Mrs. McDow, as far as I can tell you, uh, the truth about your dear beloved son.
We were just after arriving in the trenches and your boy and two more chaps from Belfast was going into a dugout to take off their packs when a shell landed. Um, which killed the three of them. I’m very sorry to say none of them did live to say a word to anyone. I had thought that maybe he was dying in some big battle, but it was just a a random shell.
I think I’m after telling you the very truth about all now, for which I am only too willing to give any brokenhearted mother as I am and as I am the only son myself and I know the way my own mother do feel, yours, etc. James O’Brien. That’s extraordinary. He definitely seems to want to reassure Elizabeth that Ernie didn’t suffer.
Some of the particularly affecting letters that I read were from Ernie’s girlfriend, Jeanie, and I was wondering, you know, she she seemed pretty devoted to Ernie in all those letters. Mhm. Um, so do we know anything about what happened to her? We do. We found a record of what happened to Jeie from the parish registers of this church.
Marriage solemnized at the um Church of the Holy Trinity. Oh wow. So yeah, they they they got married here. Mhm. Ernest McDell and Genie Barlow. Is that Barlow? Barlow. And look at the date. February 9th. February 14th. Oh, February 14th. February 14th, 1915. So, real sweethearts. It was while Ernie was on leave.
He spent the greater part of 1915 in Ireland. Right. Um, first of all, when he was recuperating from frostbite and then later on after he was wounded and again was returned to Ireland. Does make me really happy that they were able to have that year together and yeah, were able to just be a young couple for a little while.
um before he had to go back off. Do you know what else happened to the brothers? Jimmy, the oldest, settled in Belfast, but the other two brothers who returned, Joseph and Edmund, settled here in Boundbridge. Yeah, obviously it’s tragic to lose one son any amount of children is, you know, I can’t even imagine that.
But I’m I’m pleased for my great great grandmother that at least three of her sons came back to have made a World War I film and, you know, played at being a soldier in the trenches. You know, I definitely feel a lot more connected to all those stories now that I’ve kind of learned what what my own family went through.
And suddenly realizing why out of all the brothers, Ernie’s name was the one that made it down to me because he was this son that went and and and didn’t come back. to find Elizabeth’s letters to Ernie just give such an insight into what it would have been like to have your children leave for the war and just to just to find out how much love there is in my family.
You know, a lot of very sad things have happened to various parts of my family. But I can’t be sad about it because everyone was really loved and ultimately that means that the time they had on Earth, even if it ended prematurely and sadly was, you know, was worth having.
