We all, of a certain age anyway, have some reminder of just how quickly life is passing by. However, the benefits of my articles are often well rewarded, especially in terms of appeals and I am pleased to say that the good folk of Willenhall have come up trumps again with the last appeal for information on a set of war medals that came into our possession in recent years without any history.  One medal was awarded to Thomas William Thatcher for his part in the Indian Mutiny campaign in 1857/8 and 4 W.W.1 campaign medals awarded to his son, also named Thomas William. The donor was the late Vic Nicklin.  

Initial enquiries were made by our very capable archivist Jaquie Read who searched medal records and census's and established that Thomas William Thatcher senior was born in Bath in 1838 and served with the Somerset Light Infantry, but nothing to connect him to Willenhall.  

In 1875 he married Maria Donaldson in Malta and they had a son the same year, also named Thomas William. By 1881 the census shows that Maria and 6 years old Thomas had moved back to this country and were living with her parents in Skegness, Lincolnshire. Thomas junior remained in Lincs until he joined the Royal Navy in 1898 and trained as a ship's engineer, his first ship being Victory II.  

He finally left the Navy in 1920 having served throughout W.W.1 and reaching the rank of Chief Artificer Class 1. He served on a number of well-known ships, the last being H.M.S.Amphorite and was once mentioned in dispatches, but we have no details of this. His service record seems exemplary'  

Whilst establishing the above facts I asked for help in tracing Vic Nicklin's family or anyone who knew any Thatchers in the Willenhall area and thanks to information received from Dot Williams, Alan Baker and finally David Pedley I got a phone call from Vic's son Adrian.  

After Adrian consulted his 91-year-old mother Janet he was able to tell me that Thomas William Thatcher junior had become a woodwork teacher at the Central School having moved up from Plymouth and that he had actually taught his dad Vic. Thomas had a son Stanley who married Adrian's grandmother's sister and went on the keep Thatchers garage and petrol station in Lane Head, (still a petrol station).    

When Stan and his wife died they had no children so the medals were passed to Vic for safekeeping who in turn passed them to our late archivist Horace Davis. So as the connection to Willenhall is rather tenuous the medals are being offered to Adrian for family safe-keeping.   

I now have two appeals this month so perhaps you can help. Firstly from Irene Harris who lives in the wilds of Shropshire and she is trying to find any information or photographs of a largely converted bake-house that her grandparents occupied in Noose Lane in the early 1900s.  

As the lane is now largely industrialised nothing remains of is as far as I can see and nothing has shown up in the censuses. Irene has also sent us a photo of a factory believed once owned by her mother and hopes we can identify it.   It was taken in about 1920/30 and may feature people by the name of Boydon and was somewhere in the Willenhall area.   

The next enquiry is from Ken who has asked us if we have any information on Waterglade Lane where his grandparents lived for many years until 1971, which is probably when the old houses were demolished.  

Unfortunately, we have nothing at all in our archive so if anyone has photo's or anything to do with Waterglade Lane please lets us have it.    Finally this month I am resurrecting a competition that did not produce a winner and the prize for winning it is the last remaining society mug that marked our society's Silver Jubilee in 2015.  

The question you have to answer is to name the date that a glider made a forced landing on the Beacon School sports field. The first correct answer to me by email or telephone and there is a runner up prize of a nice society badge. I'm on 01902-843006 and bobrushton1945@yahoo.co.uk.   You can always use these numbers if you have anything in the way of artefacts or photo's that have a Willenhall connection which we can include in our archive.