Daughter rattles skeleton in family closet

Her research led to the unexpected delivery of her late father's medals, 65 years after peace was declared.

But it also revealed more about the complicated love-life of the man she never knew.

Mrs Brown hasn't even got a photograph to remember her father Cecil Roberts and he was rarely discussed at home.

He left the family home in Hull in 1943 when she was just two, leaving her mother to bring up her, a younger sister, and two other children from an earlier marriage.

Nothing more was heard and her mother assumed her husband had been taken prisoner of war. It was only when his RAF pay stopped she found out he had, in fact, remarried bigamously in London in 1945.

Mrs Brown started researching her family tree with the help of her granddaughter Rebecca Cook.

She sent for his service records which showed he'd served at local RAF bases, Leconfield and Cranswick, and in the Middle East and Belgium, with a barrage balloon unit.

Another letter resulted in the arrival of his medals, including the Africa Star, Defence Medal and the France and Germany Star.

Continuing the search, she also found the bigamous wedding certificate for his third wife, then uncovering a fourth showing that her father and his new wife eventually were married properly after his divorce to her mother came through.

"It's a bit strange. When you've lived all these years not knowing anything and then this turns up it gets a bit bewildering," she said. "As I say I knew the beginning and the end and now I know the middle.

"It does make it different when you have got the proof. In 1954 he obviously remarried her to make an honest woman of her.

"I didn't even know I had another step-brother. His name's Cyril but we don't know anything about him."

She continued: "I thought he was just a lorry-driver that's all my mother said.

"It makes you wonder did he really do all that? But I can't say I am proud of him or anything like that.

"I still think of him as an absent rogue. We always used to say he never cared about us. He couldn't have done because of what he did."

Her mother Hannah never remarried and Mrs Brown didn't start her research until she died in her 91st year in 2002.

"I knew she wouldn't tell me anything," she said. "I think because it hurt her so much. She still thought the world of him.

"She was still in love with him – she never bothered with anyone else."

Mrs Brown was helped by researcher Alan Brigham, from the Carnegie Heritage Centre, on Hull's Anlaby Road.

Mr Brigham said thousands of medals weren't issued after the war because of the continuing upheaval.

"June's been lucky with the medals - them being still there is unusual but not unheard of. The documents that came with the medals helped her to move forwards.

"It's surprising how many people don't actually know their fathers."

Martin Taylor is the archivist at Hull History Centre which has had more than 39,000 visitors since opening in January, the majority to research their family history.

He said: "Family history has received such a great boost through the TV and the internet as more and more sources become available and more and more records offices like ourselves and organisations like Carnegie become aware of the need to provide family information to people.

"It is one of the great levellers. Everyone has a family history of some description.

"It's a hobby that anyone can do and it provides people with a sense of belonging."

For more information see heroesofhull.co.uk.

STORY OF VALOUR ON BATTLEFRONT

A set of seven medals awarded to a brave Australian gunner who fought in World War One has fetched nearly 4,000 at auction.

Sgt Louis Kaiser, 2nd Brigade Australian Field Artillery, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Military Medal for his "coolness and courage" near Westhoek on the Western Front when he took charge of his detachment when his NCO was killed.

The medals were put up for auction at ELR Auctions at Shalesmoor in Sheffield by a local family member who was keen for them to go to someone with appreciation for their significance.