Alfred Swinscoe, 54, disappeared on a cold night in January 1967 sparking a desperate search.
It was a mystery so brutal that Russell Lowbridge, Alfred's grandson, and their family refused to ever mention it - but now there is hope that an answer might finally come their way.
Russell knew growing up that he should never bring up the subject of what had happened to his missing grandfather Alfred. Most thought the proud Derbyshire miner and pigeon racer - nicknamed ‘Sparrow’ and ‘the Champion Pigeon Man of Pinxton’ - recently estranged from his long-suffering wife, had run out on her and their six kids.
If a farmer hadn’t dug a ditch next to a copse beside his field, in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Notts, to deter trial bikers from tearing up his land in April last year, the fate of Alfred Swinscoe would still be lost in history. “It turns out that he was wearing odd socks on the night. My initial thoughts about that were, ‘poor lad, he’d left his wife and was down on his luck, he was was in lodgings and wasn’t on top of his washing.’ Or maybe that was just one of his feet and he was wearing two socks on each. It was in the middle of winter.”
“He always thought something sinister had happened. He was just an ordinary simple man. He had no passport, driving licence or car. He couldn’t have started a new life somewhere else. Although Alfred had split a year earlier from his wife Caroline, who had moved to nearby Sutton-in-Ashfield with their children and grandchildren, including Russell and his mother Julie, Gary, then 30, had continued to see him, often meeting up for a drink at the Miners’ Arms.
Russell says: “He was murdered quite viciously. There was blunt force trauma to the head and sharp force trauma to the jaw lines, so it might have been the edge of a spade, and possibly stabbing afterwards. “Did they bury him there because they knew no-one would have dared report anything suspicious to the police? Or had grandad found out that the man who killed him was gay and he was killed so he couldn’t tell?” ponders Russell.
Russell says: “My uncle had already suspected one of them. He’d had been in a battle or two with him himself and he’d been in the forces so knew military tactics. He always thought he was the prime suspect and even challenged him many times over the years. Russell says: “It’s some comfort for the family to know he didn’t abandon them, and that he’s not lost anymore. But it’s so tragic that poor Uncle Gary never got to find out what happened to him.”
“What makes this crime even more distressing is that it has taken more than 50 years for his remains to be found and for his family to be reunited with their loved one so he can have a proper burial.
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