Uttoxeter Online Magazine

Ruth Schemler, an Austrian Jewish refugee, fleeing NAZI persecution, was found raped and murdered in a disused quarry at Counslow Pot, Freehay, Cheadle, Staffordshire in 1943

Wartime investigation was sparse. Lorry tracks in quarry showed that a WD Bedford lorry had been near to the body. This would seem to indicate service personnel. The whole investigation closed down in a few weeks. There are no records at Stafford Police HQ. A promise to contact central records in London not kept.

Despite the time element. someone knows something ... Where are you ?

A local connection, my late mother, Olive Ann Mellor, late of 57 Park Avenue, Uttoxeter, had five sisters. The eldest Ivy, married William Brandrick of Beamhurst, first living at Old Wood Farm, Hollington Lane, Stramshall, before moving to Broom Farm, Freehay.  My mother, was close to her sister, and visited her regularly, she travelled to Counslow Pot, by bus via, Rocester, Alton, where she walked through the quarry, climbing a hill, to arrive by the front gate of her sisters field.

On this particular day, she entered the quarry, to find police officers all over the place. She was questioned as to where she was going, and permitted to carry on, these officers, were investigating this unsolved mystery.

My mother, until death, wondered why the murderer was never caught. A victim of the war in more ways than one.

John Mellor