Family's bizarre link to Nazi traitor Lord Haw Haw
MARY Scott has a strange memento of World War Two – a pair of braces that belonged to the disgraced Fascist Lord Haw Haw.
The braces were brought to the town by Eddie Scott, a gunner in the Yorkshire Light Infantry, who was ordered to guard the cell where Lord Haw Haw, real name William Joyce, was being detained after his capture on the German border with Denmark.
Haw Haw's mocking broadcasts to British homes beginning with the phrase 'Germany calling' had spearheaded a propaganda campaign to break the spirit of the Allies in the war.
Eddie and a fellow soldier had removed his braces, shoe laces and belt to prevent him committing suicide after he was taken prisoner.
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Joyce, the American-born son of an Irishman and an English woman, was arrested for broadcasting Nazi propaganda and was extradited to Britain, where he became the last man to be hanged in the UK for treason in January 1946.
Eddie returned to England with the braces and regaled workmates in the textile mills where he worked, and friends at Carlinghow Club, with the tale. He soon became famed as the owner of Lord Haw Haw's braces.
His daughter Marilyn said: "It was the talk of the town at the time and only recently someone stopped me in the street and said 'you're Eddie Scott's daughter. He had Lord Haw Haw's braces you know'. It was just something everyone spoke about."
The braces were kept in a kitchen drawer at Eddie's home in Carr street, and were taken with the family when they moved to Blackeridge Lane. After Eddie's death in 1989, his wife Mary took them with her to Halifax House, Staincliffe, where they were again stored in a kitchen drawer. Mary, 91, said: "I just never bothered with them, and kept them in the kitchen drawer – I didn't know what else to do with them. I don't really know what to do with them now."
Mary said she clearly remembered the infamous broadcasts. She said: "We were told not to listen to him as he was telling stories about the Germans winning the war and scaring us, making us think our loved ones were dead."
Marilyn said she hadn't thought about the braces much until it was reported Joyce's microphone and scripts were auctioned for 8,000 last Wednesday.
Now she wants to know whether the braces could be auctioned as well.
The microphone was sold by military auctioneers Bosleys in Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
Owner Stephen Bosley said it was a rare find which generated a lot of interest.
"It was quite an exciting piece and important to Joyce as a broadcaster," he said. "It was a lovely, iconic find for us."
Unfortunately for Marilyn, Mr Bosley said he wouldn't expect the braces to generate as much interest. However he said they may be worth between 200 and 300.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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