Well, it's been a few years since Dan and I started this blog in 2008, in an attempt to stop these precious and personal little snapshots from being lost to history. We didn't have a grand plan when we started this blog, we just wanted to share a view into the life of a young pilot in training.
While we painstakingly scanned and transcribed the letters, put them in their correct order, and posted them here, in the background we were trying to decide what to do with them. We were very aware they were not ours, we were merely fortunate custodians chosen purely by fate.
I looked into the Grosvenor School, and was very pleased to see they were still going well. They were very interested in the letters, and gave us more information to fill in the gaps in Olivers early life there. If we couldn't trace any family, we thought they may be good future custodians of the letters. It with sadness that we recently found out that the school is to close at the end of this academic year, after 138 years.
http://www.grosvenorschool.co.uk/
Dan looked into tracing the Pearson family, and we had a few leads, but they needed a certain amount of detective work! We found that Oliver's brother Aubrey had a son called Francis. The trail went cold from here though, although I did find an association of someone with the same name with the Bath Philharmonia ... (Francis was actually a director!) Through this we were finally able to contact with the Pearson family, although contact was broken for a couple of years while the blog was completed, then I foolishly lost Francis' contact details!
Recent contact though this blog with a lady researching the Lowdham War Memorial stirred us into action again, and we luckily managed to get in touch with Francis again. I am very happy to say that very shortly Dan and I will be returning these letters to the Pearson family, where they belong. It wasn't planned that we hand them over in this Centenary year, but it seems very fitting.
Mike.
While we painstakingly scanned and transcribed the letters, put them in their correct order, and posted them here, in the background we were trying to decide what to do with them. We were very aware they were not ours, we were merely fortunate custodians chosen purely by fate.
I looked into the Grosvenor School, and was very pleased to see they were still going well. They were very interested in the letters, and gave us more information to fill in the gaps in Olivers early life there. If we couldn't trace any family, we thought they may be good future custodians of the letters. It with sadness that we recently found out that the school is to close at the end of this academic year, after 138 years.
http://www.grosvenorschool.co.uk/
Dan looked into tracing the Pearson family, and we had a few leads, but they needed a certain amount of detective work! We found that Oliver's brother Aubrey had a son called Francis. The trail went cold from here though, although I did find an association of someone with the same name with the Bath Philharmonia ... (Francis was actually a director!) Through this we were finally able to contact with the Pearson family, although contact was broken for a couple of years while the blog was completed, then I foolishly lost Francis' contact details!
Recent contact though this blog with a lady researching the Lowdham War Memorial stirred us into action again, and we luckily managed to get in touch with Francis again. I am very happy to say that very shortly Dan and I will be returning these letters to the Pearson family, where they belong. It wasn't planned that we hand them over in this Centenary year, but it seems very fitting.
Mike.
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