Do you know anyone who did the "I'm just going to the shop to buy a paper" thing and who then disappeared forever?

[AliceAir]

Another thread on here reminded me of a girl I was in school with years ago. Her mother apparently popped to the shop to but some potatoes and never came home, and was never heard of again.

I'm not meaning people who have met with foul play but people who have decided to disappear and then done so.

@JovialNickname. For you

My great Uncle did this.

He became a widower quite young after a short marriage and after he a few years he remarried. He had a daughter from this marriage but one day just disappeared. No one knew where he had gone but after a number of years my grandfather asked the SA to trace him and they did. He was alive and well in London but didn’t want any contact with the family.

Over the years the family suspected he had a new family and it’s only recently I’ve managed to put together some kind of picture of his life due to records that are now available.

My uncle did indeed remarry (bigamously) but he never had any children with his wife. She died long before him and he then seems to have spent his remaining years working at Heathrow Airport before dying alone in hospital of a hear condition. It in fact took 4 weeks for someone to approach the coroner and say they knew him so his body could be released for burial and that’s as far as I’ve currently got with this.

I think my next step is to find out where he’s buried in what I think would be a paupers grave and I’d also like to try and find out if any of the relatives of the person who went to the coroner are alive and able to perhaps tell me more about him.

My father also had a friend, a merchant seaman, who went missing whilst his ship was in Hong Kong. He was later presumed to have fallen in the port when coming back from shore leave. Years later however my dad received a phone call and he’s convinced it was his missing friend asking how he was before hanging up.

My dad's brother did something similar. He's a strange man with obvious commitment issues eg. Divorced twice, doesn't bother with his kids who are now adults, moved to a different part of the country for work without telling anyone and never keeps in touch etc.

While working away he met a woman and was with her for a few years and lived in her house with her. One morning before he left for work she made a comment along the lines of "We'll need to go to IKEA and get a set of drawers for you to put your stuff in". He never went back. We only found out this happened because she looked some of us up on Facebook to ask if we'd heard from him because she was frantic with worry that something had happened to him. Poor woman

I've always found it strange that he is that way because he's one of 3 brothers and my dad and his other brother are real family men. Thank god my mum picked one of the good brothers!!

It happened to my friends mother. They were moving. He packed up all the furniture in a van. She packed the kids into the car and off they all went. He never arrived at the new house with the furniture. Was never seen again! She must have got hold of him somehow in the end as she divorced then remarried but they never got to the bottom of it.

Pre kids I could NEVER understand how's mother could leave her own children. But then I had children...and I had quite bad PND. There has been SEVERAL times I have gone to walk out the door with the mindset of never coming back and that they would be better without me. It's a hard mindset to shift and now I can totally see why/how this happens unfortunately.

My Mums Dad did this, during the war he jumped ship and left them, she was 5. She found his family years later, he was already dead . When I found out about this I was too young to understand what a dick head he must have been. My poor Grandma!

@handonfoot

Pre kids I could NEVER understand how's mother could leave her own children. But then I had children...and I had quite bad PND. There has been SEVERAL times I have gone to walk out the door with the mindset of never coming back and that they would be better without me. It's a hard mindset to shift and now I can totally see why/how this happens unfortunately.

Same here

@justilou1

When I was growing up, I always hated my grandmother. She was bitter and angry. Very Catholic and used the Bible as a weapon. We often heard about my “slutty” Aunt who walked out on the family at 17, and the shame she brought on the “good name”, etc... Another Aunt and I found her when I was about 20. We found out that my Catholic grandmother with 8 children had punished her severely for falling pregnant at 15. She had chosen not to believe her when she told her she’d been raped by the parish priest. Instead, she’d had this vulnerable, pregnant child subjected to an exorcism performed by her rapist, and explained the weight gain as a “thyroid problem” to the neighbours. She gave birth alone in a closet and smothered the baby. She and her older sister took it to the beach and disposed of it there. My grandmother had always been horrible to her. She was even worse after that. Never asked what happened to the baby or took her for medical attention. No wonder she just left as soon as she did. She thought that everyone hated her. She had been an alcoholic and straightened herself out. Unfortunately it took a toll on her health and she died young. (54)

Some of these life stories are terrible. That is one of the most awful things I’ve ever read on here. Your poor aunt and her poor baby. I hope she managed to find some peace.

The parents of a family member did this. Their children were all young adults - youngest 19. He was working in a different country but used to phone his mum every week. One week a stranger answered the phone and said that his parents had moved. To Australia. Nobody heard from them for years. Then family member’s brother hired a private investigator and found them. Not in Australia but back in UK. They had been back a few years.

The father was a gambler and had had to leave the country as some people he owed money to were looking for him. It wasn’t the first time - they had had to leave places before. But this time the parents just left. No contact at all for a good few years. They did reconcile to a point but family member never forgave them.

An Australian woman I met used to live with an English man who moved to Australia when he was young and never returned or contacted his family again. He didn’t mention any reason, any rift or trauma. Apparently just not interested in them. That struck me as terribly sad.

I’ve seen the other side. As a kid I had an uncle who lived with my other aunt and uncle who were married to each other. Being a kid I never thought about how unusual this was so never questioned it. When I got to my teenage years my mum confided that the ‘uncle’ had walked out on his wife and kids long before I was born to disappear and was in a threesome with the other two!

They had a lavish lifestyle with three good wage coming in. But when the married couple eventually died their children chucked him in sheltered accommodation to get their hands on the house. He died within a month a very lonely man.

An English man who moved to Australia when he was young and never returned or contacted his family again

I mean, he just went off to travel the world and ended up settling in Australia. I don’t think his birth family knew where he was, or if he was even alive.

There was a Dr in Manchester who did this - walked out of work one day with no notice, was found in a cave in the Lakes 6mths later having committed suicide shortly after he had gone missing. Turned out he was having an affair and was being pressured into telling his wife. Can't imagine what his family went through.

My neice's Dad.Went to work when she was 2 and never came home.Turned up about 10 years later.

Some people who are very mentally unwell dissociate to the point they literally detach from their lives and start new ones without linking the two.

I remember a story of a young woman who found herself on a train to London sort of unaware of her own actions. When she arrived she went to a hostel and ended up working there as a cleaner which she continued to do until one day when she was picking up a newspaper and the supplement fell out. She recognised herself as the face on the cover and read about her family trying to find her. That's when she made contact with them again. She'd had a breakdown and literally walked out of her life without a plan, assumed a new name and convinced herself that her old life had finished. It wasn't until she read about her family's search that she was able to make the connection.

The mind can do very strange things.

My grandfather did it to his first wife and got together with my grandmother. One of my mums siblings from his first marriage found her through an ancestry site and told her.

Apart from Suzy Lamplugh I can only remember the sad case of Charlene Downes from Blackpool who went missing on 1st Nov 2003 aged 14.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/believe-killed-mixed-kebabs-what-16315353

I went to school with a boy who arrived home one day to find his parents had moved house. Basically he went to school in the morning and while he was gone they packed up and left. I can't imagine how awful that must have been for him, or how awful you'd have to be to do that to your son.

My Great Grandfather was a merchant seaman and had been in a couple of shipwrecks.
We were told that he went off on a ship and never returned, assumed missing. His wife had a second family with the lodger and those children were given the missing husband’s surname.
Turns out he died in a seaman’s mission in south Australia. No idea if he chose to go there, if he was working but got sick so got off and died. No idea at all.

Pre kids I could NEVER understand how's mother could leave her own children. But then I had children...and I had quite bad PND. There has been SEVERAL times I have gone to walk out the door with the mindset of never coming back and that they would be better without me. It's a hard mindset to shift and now I can totally see why/how this happens unfortunately

I have elaborate, detailed fantasies where I up and leave for some remote place and spend the rest of my days in a tent or caravan with my goat and chickens. Never having to interact with another person again.

I don’t because my own parent left me, although not voluntarily, and it damages so many lives. I can see though if I had any sort of MH deterioration, why I might see it as best for everyone.

My great-GF did this and we’ve only recently worked out what we think happened. He met my GGM in the war, he was Irish and catholic, she was English. They got married. He received a telegram from his Mother telling him she was sick and had to come home immediately, he went. My GGM never heard from him again, found out she was pregnant a couple of weeks later, sent letters to the Ireland address she had, no replies.

A family member has been doing a family history and it looks like he moved to the US very soon after the above happened and had another family. We suspect the move might have been under some duress from family but will obviously never know for sure! It was a challenging political environment at the time which can’t have helped.

Just after the war an uncle of my DMums was a wrong un and had been involved in the black market and killed a man in a fight in London.

Shortly after, he was seen to fall in the Thames and disappeared forever.

My Dad knew this man well and said he was powerfully built and a champion swimmer and it was all likely staged and he would have got on a ship and gone abroad to avaoid charges.

Someone I knew at uni did this. He was very unwell and paranoid, and one day just left the country and completely vanished for a number of years.

He eventually returned out of the blue and as far as I know is getting help now. But for years no one knew what had happened to him. But as I said, he was a very unwell man to do such a thing.

I did this when I was younger. Packed a bag and left, posted a letter to my parents to say I was leaving and not to look for me.

I was in such a dark place at the time and I actually planned on suicide but thought it would be easier on my family if they thought I was living elsewhere.

With hindsight I can see what a horrible thing it was to do.At the time I was so sad and desperate I thought everyone would be better off without me. I still have times when I wish I had succeeded even though I have a pretty good life now. Depression is hard to keep fighting.

I came across one of these through work.

My deceased client had spent his life living with his mum and looking after her. He died three or four months after her. He never married nor had children.

His nomination of wishes, and his mother's, left everything to his brother's ex wife. His brother had been in the navy and had met and married a Danish woman and had two children. He divorced her and then disappeared. Over the next 20+ years she had kept in touch with her MIL and BIL.

They all kept trying to find him but never did and his mother was heartbroken that they couldn't find him when she knew she was dying.

There was a notice in the paper when they both died and he turned up to claim his inheritance. Turned out he'd been living in the same town all that time.