MEET THE AUTHOR

In her book What Happened to Uncle Norman? family historian SUE CAVILL reveals how she traced a mysterious great uncle

How did you come to write the book?

My interest in family history began in the early 2000s. We’d been to a family party and my daughter said, “How do we know those people, Mummy?” When I tried to draw a little tree for her, I had no clue. Fast forward a few years and I was thinking “I’m going to tidy this up”, and I noticed that my grandfather had a brother that I had no recollection of. So when I next visited my parents I asked Mum, “What happened to Uncle Norman?” She replied, “Oh dear. He deserted during the Second World War and went to Canada, leaving a wife and six children.”

So I started researching him, and over the years I’ve accumulated quite a lot of information. I jokingly said one day “I think I should put this in a book”, but left it. Then I stumbled across a writing challenge on Facebook and I thought, “You know what, let’s just do this.” Once I got started it was very hard not to finish the project.

What made you want to write about Norman? popped up on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk) that he was in Australia. I did a quick Google search, but didn’t get anywhere. Later I decided to Google an alternative name for him and I came across a website for the WA Brass, a brass band in Western Australia, which mentioned that he was a cornet player who played for the Black Dyke Band and won the Champion of Champions at the Albert Hall. I thought, “No, this can’t be my Uncle Norman.” The next thing I know I’ve got his army record from Australia, and it is indeed the same guy. I was constantly hopping between Australia and England to get all of this information together about his life. I spoke to the son of the lady that Norman lived with towards the end of his life and he sent me a mass of information, including the picture that’s in the book, which completely had me floored.

What did you find out about Norman?