I was at First Avenue House (in High Holborn, incidentally, not Holbeck) on the day when the "one-hour" system failed, leaving a small crowd of disgruntled customers, one of whom was rather vociferous. Up to then it had, in my limited experience, taken about an hour and a half. There seems to have been an unspecified problem in Birmingham. There is a notice about a consultation on services which ended in January, but I ascertained from the officer concerned that Else Churchill had been in touch with him! Willfinder is notoriously unreliable, and the cognoscenti use it only if they wish to raise their blood-pressure. Probateman (1996 onwards) is good, but it is a bit irritating to have to type in a precise date (or two precise dates to specify a period), and it could be improved by allowing a search based on the date of the grant as well as one on date of death. For grants since the end of the microfiches it gives all the information that appears on the grant itself, so one can save the six pounds if there is no will. The security staff retain all lighting equipment that visitors bring until their departure: table lamps, light bulbs . . . As with all courts, cameras are not allowed, but there is no objection to mobile phones, and we all know what they can do. Jeremy Wilkes

Thank you Jeremy. I'm delighted to learn of the unreliability of Willfinder. Last time I was at !st.Ave.House using it the whole thing ground to a complete halt. I thought I'd done something dreadful to it and was too embarrassed to ask anyone thinking they'd assume that I'm a computer illiterate old bat (which I suppose I am). Next time I shall take a much more robust approach to it. In the absence of the one hour system a rather speedier postal service would be welcome though. Angela Hamilton On 3 Mar 2012, at 8:38 pm, Jeremy Wilkes wrote: > I was at First Avenue House (in High Holborn, incidentally, not > Holbeck) on the day when the "one-hour" system failed, leaving a small > crowd of disgruntled customers, one of whom was rather vociferous. Up > to then it had, in my limited experience, taken about an hour and a > half. There seems to have been an unspecified problem in Birmingham. > There is a notice about a consultation on services which ended in > January, but I ascertained from the officer concerned that Else > Churchill had been in touch with him! > > Willfinder is notoriously unreliable, and the cognoscenti use it only > if they wish to raise their blood-pressure. Probateman (1996 onwards) > is good, but it is a bit irritating to have to type in a precise date > (or two precise dates to specify a period), and it could be improved by > allowing a search based on the date of the grant as well as one on date > of death. For grants since the end of the microfiches it gives all the > information that appears on the grant itself, so one can save the six > pounds if there is no will. > > The security staff retain all lighting equipment that visitors bring > until their departure: table lamps, light bulbs . . . As with all > courts, cameras are not allowed, but there is no objection to mobile > phones, and we all know what they can do. > > Jeremy Wilkes > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message