DETECTIVE work is again asked of Memory Lane readers as I try, to identify the doctor who compiled 13 photo albums, now in the possession of the Worcester City Museum.
The albums were bought in a large cardboard box at a car boot sale some months ago, by Paul Nielsen of Leigh, near Worcester, who thought they might be of some local historic significance and therefore passed them to Nicole Burnett of the City Museum Service.
Having been through the fascinating albums, Nicole is anxious to discover the identify of the person who compiled them so caringly through the 1930s and 40s.
"He was apparently known as Doc and was clearly a doctor, as there are a lot of photographs of hospital buildings and staff where he worked," says Nicole.
I have also scanned the albums and note that Doc served in the 1930s on the medical staff at Kettering General Hospital and then at the Warneford Hospital, Leamington Spa. One photograph of him is also captioned The Country Doctor - in Worcestershire?
There are also numerous photographs from the war years when Doc was obviously a medical officer in the Army, serving in Algiers in 1943 and 1944, and then in France.
He also had the harrowing experience of treating the emaciated victims of a German concentration camp.
Significantly, one page of photographs is of a fellow Army medical officer who, I was able to identify as Dr John Burton, a GP in Worcester for many years , with his surgery on the corner of High Street and Deansway.
Dr Burton was also for a time a Worcester city councillor.
Dotted about the albums are photographs of Worcestershire scenes including snaps of riverside expanses at Worcester and The Lenchford, clearly taken from a boat.
Also to be seen in the background of one photograph is a car with a local old CFK number plate.
Other albums are of holidays in Paris and on cruises to exotic countries.
Here are two photographs of Doc from the albums and I hope that they, together with other clues in this article, will help someone to identify him.
Nicole Burnett says that if any family of Doc are still living and would like to recover the "lost" albums, the Museum of Local Life would be happy to return them. In fact, it was Paul Nielsen's specific instruction that the albums should be returned to the family if any members were still living.
If not, the albums will be added to the collections of the Worcester Museum of Local Life at Tudor House in Friar Street, where Nicole Burnett is in charge.
n Readers who think they can identify Doc or know of the whereabouts of any of his descendants can contact me at the Evening News.
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