I am grateful to the Acton History Group for their support and research, including the lovely book Tin Hats, Doodlebugs and Food Rations by Maureen Colledge, which relies on newspaper reports from the time, as well as oral history from local people. This helped me confirm stories about the war told to me by my grandmother Annie, my Great-Aunt Elsie and my mum. I am also very lucky to have had the backing of the We Love Acton W3 Facebook group, which provided many memories of my gran’s time in Acton.
The case against my great-grandfather John Alexander Dickman is studied by law students today and remains controversial because of the nature of the evidence used to convict him and the possibility that there was police collusion. It resulted in a change in identification parade line-up procedures.
Several writers have researched this case incredibly thoroughly and I can recommend the work of authors John J. Eddleston, May the Lord Have Mercy on Your Soul, and Diane Janes, Edwardian Murder, for further reading. I was able to form my own opinions about the guilt or innocence of my great-grandfather by reading their works and studying the Home Office records of the trial held at the National Archives at Kew. John J. Eddleston offers the intriguing possibility of having unmasked the real killers. He also scotches another theory, namely that my great-grandfather was responsible for another killing in 1908, of a wealthy woman Caroline Luard, in Kent, having allegedly fiddled a cheque that she sent him after he had requested financial help in an advert in The Times. Eddleston points out that the trial evidence included all the details of my great-grandfather’s two bank accounts from that time, and there was no reference to a cheque from Mrs Luard. It seems to me that this other murder case was most likely to have been pinned on John Alexander after his execution when disquiet about the case was growing.
I also relied on local newspaper reports from the Northern Echo, where I spent many happy years as a reporter back in the 1990s, and also the Newcastle Evening Chronicle and the Newcastle Journal. I can still recall looking through the old bound copies for the first time and reading the reports of my relative’s trial and hanging, which sent a shiver down my spine. I reproduced the front-page news story about the execution exactly as it was reported in the Northern Echo the morning after it happened and I would like to thank Newsquest Media Group for the permission to do so.
Experts from the Great War Forum were very generous with their time and help in identifying my grandad’s regiment in World War One as many of the records were destroyed by a German bomb during World War Two, which makes research difficult. The kindness and enthusiasm of these experts made a real difference to me.
George Orwell’s account of living in London dosshouses in the 1930s, in Down and Out in Paris and London, helped to put my grandfather Harry’s experiences in context. Life for the underclass without the safety net of any welfare state was a very grim one indeed.
The last word of thanks must go to you, my readers, who have been so supportive and enthusiastic about me writing a sequel to All My Mother’s Secrets. Thank you for reading me. You make it all worthwhile.
The official Facebook account for all my book news is beezymarshauthor and you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram @beezymarsh. You can sign up for book updates and all my news on my blog on my website beezy-marsh.com.
Research Sources
Colledge, Maureen, Tin Hats, Doodlebugs and Food Rations, Acton History Group, 2014
Laybourn, Keith, The General Strike of 1926, Manchester University Press, 1993
Rev J.O. Coop, The Story of the 55th (West Lancashire) Division, Naval and Military Press, Amazon, 2018
Janes, Diane, Edwardian Murder, Sutton Publishing, 2007
Eddleston, John J., And May the Lord Have Mercy On Your Soul, Bibliofile Publishers, 2012
Salmon, Thomas W., The Care and Treatment of Mental Diseases and War Neuroses (Shell Shock) in the British Army, Old South Books, Amazon, 2018.
I also viewed archive material, films and pictures from the following sources:
Pathé News
British Newspaper Archive
The National Archives at Kew
Forces War Records
Acton Gazette, Northern Echo, Newcastle Evening Chronicle, Newcastle Journal, the Shipbuilder
Great War Forum: www.greatwarforum.org
The Long Long Trail website for World War One regiments: www.longlongtrail.co.uk
BBC news and radio archives: www.bbc.co.uk