Mother takes secret of dad's identity to grave

The only thing 64-year-old Jim Tarbox (right) knows about his real father is that he was called G Moss and was in Chester during the Second World War. He tells Chester Chronicle ALLISON DICKINSON about the quest to find his roots.

JIM Tarbox only discovered the man he called Dad was not his father after his mother died two years ago.
As he started preparing her eulogy he looked through her papers to find out when Tamar Tarbox, née Garrard, was stationed at Saighton camp with the Auxilliary Territorial Services in Chester.

"I found that some of the dates didn't quite match up," he said.

"I also found two birth certificates for me - one in my mother's maiden name with no entry under the father's name dated 1944, and another dated two years later which gave me the surname of Tarbox, the man she married, and the man I had known as Dad.

"I called my uncle and he asked if I knew Les was not my real dad - it turned out that my aunts, uncles and cousins knew and they had kept this a secret from me for 60 years. I just couldn't believe it.

"Working back the months from my birth date, she was definitely in Chester when I was conceived - and I need to know if my father or any of his family are still in the area. Not to gain an extended family, but to fill the large gap that I have in my life. I simply need to know who my father was."

Jim, born John Montgomery-Garrard in Ongar, Essex in June 1944, discovered his mother had become pregnant while serving with the ATS in 1944. He does not know why the name Montgomery appears on his original birth certificate.

Tamar's Army records revealed she was 18 when she joined the ATS in December 1941. She had been stationed at Saighton from January 1942 to February 1942, when she went AWOL.

She was arrested and brought back to Saighton in March 1942, where she remained until being discharged for "family matters" in December 1943. Jim was born in June 1944.

Court records from June 1944 revealed that Jim's father, identified on court papers as G Moss, had to pay maintenance of 7/6 per week until his 16th birthday in 1960 - and according to elderly relatives, he never missed a payment.

There were rumours among some relatives that his father could have been an American GI at the camp, but Tamar's then best friend Marie Marshall, who is still alive, says the man spoke with a "local accent".
Marie has told Jim she knows nothing about his father except that, on the two occasions she met him, he was in civilian clothing.

Tamar joined the ATS after hearing that her fiancée, John Rennocks, was missing in action in Burma and was believed dead.
Jim, a retired police officer from Stanford Le Hope, Essex, thinks that her affair with the man he knows only as G Moss occurred because she was mourning the loss of that relationship.

Bizarrely, John survived and ended up marrying Tamar's sister when he eventually returned to their home town of Ongar and found her married with two young children.

Jim was at the time living with his grandparents and joined the family when he was six years old. He was eventually to become the oldest of 10 children.

Jim has been unable to gather any information about his biological father, and requests for details from the authorities have proved fruitless. He has even been on the television show Trisha to try and trace him, but to no avail.

He is looking for any information about G Moss, whether he was a local man or an American GI, and whether he is still in Chester or has family in the area.

He is appealing to Cestrians who lived or worked near the camp, or who attended one of the dances there, to search their memories for anything that could help me.

Contact Jim on 01375 403890 or you can post information to him, anonymously if you wish, at 5, Brampton Close, Collingham, Stanford Le Hope, Essex SS17 7NS.