A PROFESSOR is appealing for help to find the grave of his brother, who died three hours after being born in 1946.

Professor Ewan Anderson’s brother Gregor died at Bromley Maternity Hospital in Masons Hill, Bromley, on May 11, 1946.

Despite searching for the past four years, Prof Anderson has been unable to find any records of whether the hospital, which closed in 1980, buried or cremated the bodies of newborn babies.

Gregor was born two months prematurely and Prof Anderson, a 72-year-old retired geo-politics professor, says his parents never discussed his death.

Prof Anderson, who lived in Kingsway, Petts Wood, with his parents and sister until 1952, said: “I was eight at the time and I think it was very difficult for my parents to talk about.

“My parents probably did know where he was buried but I never asked, because it was upsetting for them, and my father died in 1965 and my mother died in 1985.

“Now I do not want to leave this earth without finding out what happened to my brother.

“My father was a Church of England man and he had him baptised at the hospital.

“He was actually a person with a name and I would have thought that legally there was some onus on the hospital to give him a proper burial somewhere.

“Maybe there was a little memorial garden at the hospital.”

Prof Anderson, a married father-of-three, says he has tried many different avenues to find out what happened at the hospital, which stood on land now occupied by a Barratt Homes development.

He said: “I have contacted the local NHS, libraries, cemeteries and undertakers as well, but none of them could help or knew what happened.

“I’m really hoping now that someone who knows what happened to babies who died at the hospital will read this article and contact me.”

Prof Anderson, who now lives in Durham, added: “As you get older you start looking back at your roots and that sort of stuff.

“When I was 65 I got in touch with some of the lads I went to Dulwich College with, where I was a boarder, and we got together again and canoed down the Thames to raise money for the college.

“I feel there are all these things about my roots that I want to sort and I’m angry with myself for not thinking about it earlier.

“As you get older you want to put things right, and that’s what I’m trying to do now by finding my brother’s grave.”

If you have information which may help Prof Anderson’s search, call our newsroom on 01689 885721.

NHS HELP

South London Healthcare NHS Trust says the records relating to Prof Anderson’s brother would have been destroyed in the 1970s.

This is because records are only kept for 25 years, unless they are for a patient receiving ongoing treatment.

However, the Trust is assisting Prof Anderson in his search, with the chaplain at Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough looking into what happened to babies who died at Bromley Maternity Hospital.