we managed to find any) which we strung together and then hung from the central pole which kept the roof on. Pity we never got an English newspaper, we could have read it first before wiping our backsides with it. Something to read would have been good, anything to stimulate our brains and give us another view of the outside world. Imagine yourself being cut off from the rest of the world with no telephones, newspapers, TV or radio and no transport to take you out somewhere different, to shop or visit a cinema. All we had was ourselves, our own thoughts and the company of other prisoners.
We liked the occasional sing song and tried our best to pick out songs which we all knew, like
Jack, the musical one, once suggested that we put on a little concert. It was all a bit awkward as we didn’t really know what to do and, like other people who were shy, I wouldn’t have been able to stand up in front of everybody and perform even if I had any talent. We got started on it then dropped it because some bright spark said, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to do a play?’ That didn’t work either. I don’t think we had anybody among us who was good enough to write a script or learn the lines.
What I really enjoyed was listening to people talking about themselves and what they did in civvy street. We had some spare rooms and one had a long table and some wooden forms in it, a bit like a schoolroom. We took some chairs from somewhere else so we could seat about twenty of us and we would sit and talk, each person giving a little talk for twenty minutes before moving on to the next one. It was interesting hearing about people’s jobs and families and that’s when I learned that a couple of fellows lived not far from me in Barking. We could spend whole evenings like this and sometimes it was the simplest, everyday things which fellows talked about that really held my attention. It made me yearn for the old days when life was simpler.
Another highlight of camp life was when there was delivery of new uniforms from the Red Cross. This didn’t happen very often and I think the main camp had first pick from the look of what we landed up with. There were never enough clothes to go round so we had to wait our turn. I wore my original uniform for three years, that’s the one I was wearing in the propaganda photographs. I took care of it all that time so that it lasted. I kept it clean, darned holes and reinforced seams. Some men didn’t bother but it gave me something to do and gave me a sense of pride in keeping it going. After all, we were still British soldiers.
I was thrilled, of course, when I got something new. I remember a consignment of clothes arriving and it was my turn with Laurie to sit down to unpack them, sort them all out and check the sizes. They never had a full range of sizes, so it was pot luck getting a uniform which fitted. You weren’t fussy. You thought yourself lucky to get something and most men were walking about in a mismatch of clothes. What did it matter? It wasn’t a fashion parade.
I was a size 7 and ended up with size 16 trousers, much too big and long for me. So I cut the bottoms off, turned them inside out, gathered up the material and sewed them up to make a seam. Our tailor chap was a wizard with offcuts, so he snapped them up for future use, showing us how to make mittens (like little pockets for your hands) also using strips cut off our blankets. They came in handy when we working in very cold, wet weather and they were also easy to dry, unlike your clothes. Pop your mittens under your straw mattress or pillow and the warmth would dry them out.
It’s funny thinking about it now, how excited we got over the simplest everyday thing. A pair of new socks, an extra slice of sausage, a game of football, a letter from home, a dry coat, a boiled sweet, a sunny day, a guard who looked the other way. But, you know, I think life was the same for a lot of people at that time. Nothing was normal. You could take nothing for granted any longer. At home there was rationing and shortages, the fear of bombing and of receiving a letter from The War Office through your letter box.
Fear ruled everybody’s life. The local people were afraid of the authorities and not complying with orders, fearing reprisals if they didn’t do as they were told. They saw their farms and land taken over and their children sent away. They didn’t like to be seen speaking to us or showing us any favours. We would love to have got to know some of the people we worked alongside or indeed help them.
Several times we were called to unload the coal wagons at the railway station. This was winter fuel for the villagers and we spent a couple of days shovelling it from the wagons into carts, which then went off to storage places nearby. We got really filthy dirty doing this. Imagine standing by the open side of the wagon as the coal all comes hurtling down as soon as you dig into the pile. Never mind, we knew the locals appreciated what we did, even if they couldn’t say anything to us. A smile was enough.
Now there were always little bits of coal at the bottom of the wagon and some of the elderly people, usually women, from the village would bring baskets and crawl under the trucks to pick up any bits which had fallen through the gaps onto the line. So what we did when we were down to the last bit of the load was to find a decent hole in the floor of the wagon and push nuggets of coal through for the women underneath to pick up. We were not doing any harm to the Germans or costing them anything; we were just helping these old people get a bit of extra fuel for their stoves. And winters there were long and hard, bitterly cold with the snow and ice lasting six months or more.
Many of these elderly folk were struggling to keep going in their own homes. Families had been broken up, sons and grandsons had left, conscripted or taken away forcibly. If a man in our country did not want to go to war he could be a conscientious objector and do other work, such as going down the mines or serving in the medical corps. But in Germany they couldn’t refuse to fight or they and all their family could be sent to a concentration camp.
Our guards turned a blind eye to a bit of coal pilfering. They were quite privileged away from front line. It may have been boring for them and they didn’t have many luxuries either, but they were pretty safe. As long as they obeyed orders, said ‘
So everybody tried to keep things on an even keel. None of us prisoners wanted to step out of line as it could have repercussions for everybody else. The guards didn’t want any trouble as that could reflect badly on them and they wanted so stay on at the camp because they were out of harm’s way. So we put up with things. But sometimes, once in a while, it didn’t take much to tip you over the edge.
9
Not Fit for Pigs
Every day started and ended the same: thinking about food from the moment you got up to when your head hit the straw mattress at night. You were looking forward to each meal, whatever you were given, hoping there might be something different or a little bit more. Mug of coffee for breakfast, thin, greasy soup for lunch, and a piece of bread and butter and a slice of bratwurst, if you were lucky, for supper. Play cards. Darn your socks. Write a letter. Go to bed hungry. Always the same.
Except that day. I will always remember that particular day as one thing distinguished it from all the thousands of other days spent in exactly the same way.
Mid July. Warm and dry. It was harvest time. That day I was in a different working party. There were eleven of us, including pals Laurie and Jimmy, and we were working on a small farm helping the farmer, his wife and their daughter with the harvest. We were in a hay barn and we were moving sheaves of wheat with pitch forks from one side of a huge barn to the opposite bay. We were giving the hay a good airing so it didn’t rot or get eaten by vermin. I was up top with three others, throwing the sheaves down to the five below, who passed them to the other three in the empty bay. It was hard work and it was hot, and the dust from the wheat got in the back of my throat. We had rolled up our sleeves and tied string round the bottom of our trousers to stop the mice getting up our legs when their nests were disturbed in the wheat. They ran out, babies and adults, all over the place, looking for another safe place to settle.
Good old Jimmy had come prepared. He usually carried an assortment of useful things in his pockets including string which he saved from the Red Cross Parcels. Just the ticket. It was funny though, because you wouldn’t think to look at it that the string was actually made out of brown paper. It was all twisted very, very tightly
