The "Disappearance" of Tom Friedlander an old Jewish American Friend....

                                          

The "disappearnce" of someone is usually associated with a dystopian type state  rather than a country like the UK. But that is what happened in my case; My old friend of many years Tom Freidlander "vanished". I rang up the hospital but no one was willing to tell me anything about him at all. It was a case of passing the buck in which a whole series of NHS employees refused over the phone to say anything about him. But to be fair someone in the end claimed at least that he was "alright". Yet, he did not say whether he was at the hospital or not!! Admitedly, I am  not a relative of his. I was just a concerned friend.  

Anyhow, I next decided to see his landlord a certain wealthy Muslim whom I will refer to simply as Z. Apparently, the latter claimed that the Slough Borough Councill was still paying Tom's rent. This suggested that he was still alive. However, they would not say whether he was in hospital or in a nursing  home as he was quite old. In other words, he could not be contacted directly not even by his own landlordl! The situation was fast becoming a farce. 

The UK Data Protection Laws governing such matters of privacy seem to be too extreme and too rediculous. Ofcourse, I knew one possible reason why this was so because the authorities needed to be fully sure that the enquirer/potential visitor could be of  no danger to the "patient" concerned. But if one were to visit him a security guard could be present to ensure that "nothing would go wrong." 

Anyway, I did try to find other means to contact Tom by visiting a few nursing  homes in the locality but to no avail. So I gave up the task. I did think of employing a private detective but this can get costly. In the end I gave up. Z was also mystified by all this.

During the time of his "disappearance" I received a communication from America  in an orange envelope. It was sent to my address as Tom always trusted me with minding post that he regarded as being very important and sensitive. I would then physically pass it on to him...but in this case it was clearly not possible. The communication mentioned above consisted of legal papers from some solicitor and was in connection with a large bequest of money from a trust fund set up by Tom's late relative an American Jewess. I showed this to Z . A year or so passed and I received another "notice" from "another" band of solicitors about "another" bequest.  But it was ofcourse never claimed.

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The Researcher

Some months later I received an odd phone call from from someone claiming to be a researcher. She "appeared" totally out of the blue. We had email correspondence and she wrote that she was working for a Canadian firm. I tried to help her in connection with certain details about Tom's past life and she was thankful for that. I will not disclose any further details on this matter but end my brief article.

The Tesco Set    The link includes something about the life of Tom Friedlander.