Returned application.

Discussion in 'Service Records' started by sligoglaswegian, Jul 23, 2015.

  1. amberdog45

    amberdog45 Senior Member

    Hi John, disappointing they couldn't take your request via their dedicated extract ordering telephone number. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the number printed on the ordering form! I've only ever applied via the post in the past. But looks like Steve has resolved the problem for you. Good work on his part.
     
  2. Red Goblin

    Red Goblin Senior Member

    It's easy to be wise after the event but Jules' (post 12) foresight in stating his suspicion of age falsification up front seemed to do the trick of getting his application dealt with by someone with sufficient imagination. This shouldn't be necessary of course - my MP555 contact voluntarily commented how often recruits lied to get in - but corporate incompetence is sadly rampant nowadays. In John's place I'd be angling for full compensation re MP400's shabby service - records supplied FoC being fair here IMHO or, at the very least, refunding out-of-pocket expenses necessarily incurred helping them sort out their own sorry mess. Thus rubbing their noses in it may then serve to buck up their ideas sufficiently for the general good whilst letting them off the hook - by say accepting weak apologies - will probably not ("Fine words butter no parsnips" as I seem to recall from Dad's Army).
     
    Buteman, bamboo43 and amberdog45 like this.
  3. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    hi steve.i rang MP 555 this morning but unfortunately didn't get to speak to the lady you spoke with yesterday,however the young lady i spoke to assured me that there is a file with the dob of 16/11/1919 but like mp 400 she couldn't open this,but as your contact is so confident this is my dad's file,i'll re-apply using that dob and keep all fingers and toes crossed that it's correct.

    i'd like to say a huge thankyou to all who helped in this wee conundrum,especially steve who went out of his way to make sure my dad's files were searched for (while i would probably have gave up at the first hurdle.)steve, i take my hat off to you sir.

    kind regards,john.
     
    Rich Payne, RosyRedd, Buteman and 2 others like this.
  4. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    John,

    I've watched this thread avidly for the duration. Brilliant work from Steve + others and I sincerely hope you get your father's records soon.

    Best wishes

    Steve
     
  5. Red Goblin

    Red Goblin Senior Member

    Hi John,

    I'd strongly advocate following Jules' example by just resupplying the correct DoB and similarly saying it seems not to be what your dad attested to - along with the fact that you're re-applying under advisement from MP555. I'd be very wary of specifying any other date in case it turns out to be wrong and you end up paying for nothing. It's their job to find your dad's record and my 100% faith in the Law of Universal Cussedness tells me you shouldn't spoon-feed them but get them to take full responsibility for their choice of which record(s) to order. If you unwittingly mislead them, they may not see beyond that to try again. There's an old truism - happiness is a scapegoat - and you don't want to be theirs if you can possibly help it. 16 Nov 1919 is MP555's suggestion - not yours - and it's best they fully realise that !

    Tons o' luck,
    Steve

    PS: And be sure to outline your uncle's service record as that's bound to help them.
     
  6. Red Goblin

    Red Goblin Senior Member

    Ah but you didn't - you started this thread :D. As for persistence, I've had no other option but to learn that since my dad died on 5 Nov '12 - ongoing probate still proving a right firework show even now. For those who don't know, we personal representatives are governed by strict Probate/Trust Law and liable to HMRC/legatee audit - everything has to be scrupulously correct with none of the laissez-faire/laissez-aller discretion we may privately exercise. It took me 2½yrs, for instance, to find an SSE employee with enough common sense & authority to accept & act on the fact that a mistake of theirs meant they could never (without spending more on outsourced fully-manual accounting than it was worth) issue me legally-acceptable bills and so accept my proposal of settling at our last agreed Xmas 2012 balance - and when he realised that only amounted to £56-odd he even waived that by way of compensation for all the stress they'd put me through. Illegitimi non carborundum indeed ! I've been told I could write a book on the trials & tribulations I, as an involuntary lay sole proving executor, have had to find ways around but I'll just be glad enough to see the back of it and get back to living my own life.

    FWIW,
    Steve

    PS: Untitled & anon from my dad's papers:
     
    amberdog45 likes this.
  7. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    Well said Steve,I hope you get your dad's affairs sorted soon.i posted my application pack this morning and included a hand written note explaining why I was applying for the records dated 16/11/1919 so surely they should send that file. I'll let you know when it comes back whether it's the right one or not.
    Kind regards,John.
     
    RosyRedd and amberdog45 like this.
  8. amberdog45

    amberdog45 Senior Member

    Och this whole thread has got me thinking I might have to do more prodding about my aunts ATS record. They couldn't find hers either at Glasgow and she couldn't be found on the Scottish ID register. Could she have possibly faked her age too?

    I got my Grans '39 ID Reg and just assumed my aunt would have been living with her at the time but nothing showed up for her for Scotland.

    I think I'll wait for the '39 register to go on line for England first so I can check that first. I suppose there was a slim chance she was with my Dad while he was an apprentice at Newmarket race course. My Gran shaved off 4 years from her age on the ID Reg, so there's a possibility my aunt added years to her age to serve in the Army as soon as she could. I know she was with the ATS is Derby in 1942 (age 17), born in 1925.
     
  9. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    would it be worth giving brown street a ring and enquire if there is any same date different year of birth for your aunt?
     
  10. amberdog45

    amberdog45 Senior Member

    That's what I'm starting to think John. Your thread has made me question everything, coupled with the fact she didn't appear on the Scots 39 register. Unfortunately you have to apply for individual entries from the 39 reg here in Scotland.

    While I was researching for you I discovered the Irish 39 Reg, you don't apply by date of birth, but you apply using the address! The Irish 39 reg gives out all the names of the inhabitants, kind of like a census. Sure wish it was that way over here. My aunt was only 14 at the time in '39 and just assumed she would show up at the same address I was given for my gran and like you, I supplied the correct date of birth for her ID entry. Back to the drawing board I think. If your post hadn't come up, I would likely have just given up.
     
  11. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    i found the ladies i spoke to quite helpful if you ask them to look for certain dates,(i don't know if they are allowed a certain amount of time per query) so you have to get your questions in before they start to wind the conversation down.(hope that makes sense).
     
  12. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    hi all,an update on the latest in this wee saga. i received the letter from brown street i was waiting for,but unfortunately the service records inside were not my fathers but the file of a JOHN Docherty from renfrewshire,(my fathers name was (is)James Docherty, from glasgow. it really is a ridiculous way of working in this computerised age that they can't (or won't)search by christian name,by place of birth,by regiment or by any other means to make things a bit easier for people researching their family history.i know it was a gamble when i applied for this record,but if they had the ability to look at the record before they order it wouldn't it make a huge difference in buying(or not) the correct file. i'll ring them tommorrow and see if they can come up with an answer to this connundrum. i'll send away for his entry in the 1939 i.d. register and see if there is any clue in that,it might mention which regiment he was in. until then i'll update if i get any new info.

    regards,john.
     
  13. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    What bad luck you are having John, I do sympathise.

    Just as a matter of interest, which unit did John Docherty's file reveal and did it have the same DOB as your father's? :wink:


    Lesley
     
  14. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    hi lesley, John Docherty served with the Reme,his day and month of birth are the same as dad's but he was born two years earlier.

    john.
     
  15. Red Goblin

    Red Goblin Senior Member

    As a circumstantial reality check I've just reviewed this thread, alongside John's uncles John's attestation, to see what basis we have for believing James was even in the Army - as Lesley wisely queried in her post 2 - and have to admit now seeing room for doubt. It's also perhaps worth pointing out, assuming I'm correctly reading the bracketed abbreviation in post 8's 'records 089.jpg' as "(Yr)" for "(younger)", that we seem to have exhausted the Army's stock of likely cross-checkable DoB lies and so ought to consider other service arms sent to Italy (i.e. RN/RAF). James may not, after all, have shared John's ambitions or the recruitment 'sausage machine' may have simply thus split them, if they did indeed queue together to be sequentially processed in immediate succession, on arbitrary/random/rotational allocation grounds (theories open to correction by policy experts).

    My simplistic non-medical audiometric background tells me persistent tinnitus is unlikely to result from short-term occasional exposure to noise - rather suggesting a routinely-noisy occupation such as artilleryman or boiler room stoker both incidentally found in Naval service. My question is therefore whether the known facts - including those inevitably not yet reported in the this thread - will bear such alternate interpretation ? I'm tending to discount the RA, BTW, due to the Army now seeming unlikely.

    Steve
     
  16. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    Hi all, I rang mp 555 on Friday and spoke to a very helpful lady who is going to look at some files to cross reference with dad's address and next of kin,there are three files in particular with November 1921 d.o.b.'s. File 1,12/nov, file 2,14th nov, file 3,18th nov. Hopefully one of these has been misread or misfiled and is the elusive 16th nov 1921 file of my father.i won't find out until midweek,so once again fingers crossed.
    Regards,john.
     
  17. Red Goblin

    Red Goblin Senior Member

    Nice out-of-the-box thinking there John - I hope you get lucky. I seem to recall cases of folk falsifying their age and being found out but circumstantially/leniently not chucked out in view of training investment - so that their records would presumably end up being (arguably unexpectedly) filed under their supposedly-correct DoB even though such pragmatism would appear to be in breach of King's Regulations.

    Steve
     
  18. sligoglaswegian

    sligoglaswegian Active Member

    Hi all,good news,i recieved an e mail from the lady at mp555 to say she has found a match for dad's records,she matched this file with his adress and is quite confident this is the file we've been searching for.i won't know what the mix up was until i see the record,but i'd say it was an error in filing. i'll update again when i get the records in the post. until then.....

    regards,john.
     
  19. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Well done John for your perseverance :) . Hope you receive the correct service record.
    (It pains me to say it but the MOD seems to have been very helpful for once :wink: )

    Lesley
     
  20. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

    Fingers crossed John. Here's hoping.

    Steve
     

Share This Page