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Richard commented on the previous post that he hoped there were instructions. There ya go!
(PS : You'll probably have to click on the photo top bring up the larger size to be able to read them)
In one image, this week's Saturday Timewatch features two classic smells from childhood - steam locomotives and carbolic soap! Interestingly, both are still readily available, at least in the UK. Steam still runs regularly, both on our numerous heritage railways and also on mainline specials. Carbolic soap can even be bought from Tesco.
Today's Saturday Flashback marks the 50th anniversary of the closure of the Atlantic Coast Express.
From 1926 to 1964 the service ran from London Waterloo to Ilfracombe, Bude, Padstow and Plymouth. It bit the dust as a result of the infamous "Beeching Axe" when the government culled numerous rail lines in the UK en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
This week's service could not retrace the 20th century route due to those line closures. Instead it ran from London to Penzance. The first leg from London Victoria to Exeter was hauled by Tangmere 34067, a Battle of Britain class locomotive en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR_West_Country_and_Battle_of_Brita...
This photograph is from ten days ago. She was on one of her runs down from London to Weymouth, Dorset.
I don't have an exact date for this week's Saturday Flashback. It is an old petrol pump discovered behind a shed. Founded in 1917, I have found one reference to E.P Barrus Ltd at it's 37, Upper Thames Street, London E.C.A address dated 1937. The company still exists, though now on an industrial estate in Oxfordshire manufacturing assorted generators and pumps, garden products, marine engines etc etc.
I wonder how much petrol cost when pumped from this machine??
This week's Saturday Flashback pays another tribute to a great film, The Last Picture Show. Remarkably, Ganado Cinema is still up and running, apparently with state of the art technology inside www.ganadocinema.com/about.html . Ganado is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, population 2027.
If you are not familiar with The Last Picture Show, here is the trailer.
"Sir. Passengers by the Furness and Whitehaven lines who have the misfortune to be detained at Foxfield (a by no means unusual occurrence) in rainy weather with a little wind, and it is rarely calm there, are speedily convinced that if it was the intention of the management to contrive a station including the greatest amount of discomfort to passengers in general, and ladies in particular, it has succeeded to a miracle. Then there is a good roof, ditto wall, but let the wind blow from what part of the compass it chooses, it brings the rain in with it more than half way across the platform, damping at once the clothes and spirits of those exposed to it by anything other than homeopathic doses.
Yours & c, J.B. Thursday 18th May 1865.
The unexpected things you learn! Little did I know until I stumbled upon this sign on a building that Amersfoort was apparently the first and reputedly one of the best places in Holland for grinding tobacco to use as snuff. The building in question was not a windmill, so assume the sign has been moved from elsewhere in the city....though perhaps the building was some sort of warehouse? I cannot be certain as to when this business actually started. One article says 1560. That seems incredibly early. However, whenever it was, sufficient was produced by mills throughout Holland to export to other west European countries.
Pictorial signs such as this indicating what business or craft was being carried out at a particular location are quite common and a delight to see in Holland.
A couple of days ago I posted a photo of the Myra trestles, near Kelowna BC www.flickr.com/photos/99303089@N00/15502089041/
I then discovered there was a small 6 mile section of the Kettle Valley Railway preserved and still in operation further down the old line at Summerland. here are two photos from a great little steam railway.
The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 World War II film based on the novel The Bridge over the River Kwai by French writer Pierre Boulle. The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942-43 for its historical setting. It was directed by David Lean and stars Alec Guinness, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Hawkins and William Holden.
The largely fictitious film plot is based on the building in 1943 of one of the railway bridges over the Mae Klong - renamed Khwae Yai in the 1960s - at a place called Tha Ma Kham, five kilometers from the Thai town of Kanchanaburi. This was part of a project to link existing Thai and Burmese railway lines to create a route from Bangkok, Thailand to Rangoon, Burma (now Myanmar) to support the Japanese occupation of Burma. About a hundred thousand conscripted Asian labourers and 12,000 prisoners of war died on the whole project.
Although the suffering caused by the building of the Burma Railway and its bridges is true, the incidents portrayed in the film are mostly fictional. Historically the conditions were much worse. The real senior Allied officer at the bridge was Lieutenant Colonel Philip Toosey. Some consider the film to be an insulting parody of Toosey. On a BBC Timewatch programme, a former prisoner at the camp states that it is unlikely that a man like the fictional Nicholson could have risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel; and if he had, he would have been "quietly eliminated" by the other prisoners. Julie Summers, in her book The Colonel of Tamarkan, writes that Pierre Boulle, who had been a prisoner of war in Thailand, created the fictional Nicholson character as an amalgam of his memories of collaborating French officers.
Toosey was very different from Nicholson and was certainly not a collaborator who felt obliged to work with the Japanese. Toosey in fact did as much to delay the building of the bridge as possible. Whereas Nicholson disapproves of acts of sabotage and other deliberate attempts to delay progress, Toosey encouraged this: white ants were collected in large numbers to eat the wooden structures, and the concrete was badly mixed.
Some of the characters in the film have the names of real people who were involved in the Burma Railway. Neither their roles nor their characters appear to be portrayed accurately. For example, historically a Sergeant-Major Saito was second in command at the camp. In the film a colonel of the same name is camp commandant. In reality, Saito was respected by his prisoners for being comparatively merciful and fair towards them; Toosey later defended him in his war crimes trial after the war, and the two became friends.
The destruction of the bridge as depicted in the film is entirely fictional. In fact, two bridges were built: a temporary wooden bridge and a permanent steel/concrete bridge a few months later. Both bridges were used for two years, until they were destroyed by Allied aerial bombing. The steel bridge was repaired and is still in use today.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Saturday Flashback! This won't mean anything to anyone outside the UK, but what a delight to see a now rare Grauniad misprunt. Back in the day, The Guardian, methinks often on purpose, used to regularly have great misprints before the era of automatic spell checkers. You even awarded the paper a bonus point when they occurred in the crossword!
So last night was a good night for Portugal, scoring 33 goals in the second half of their World Cup 2014 qualifier.
Not my original photo. The b&w photo was taken by John Piper on an unknown date . My best guess is around the 1930s.
As always, if someone wants this removed due to copyright reasons I will do so..
Next Tuesday UK ITV channel is to test the theory of Guy Fawkes gunpowder plot..
The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend
Richard Hammond introduces an investigation into Guy Fawkes' treasonous scheme, which was attempted 400 years ago. To discover the repercussions had the plot been successful, an exact replica of the House of Lords is built, 17th-century gunpowder is sourced, and the fuse is lit. A dramatic reconstruction follows events as King James I and his government are assassinated, and Fawkes and his cohorts make their escape
the test if carried out would have changed the course of history
..and then the BBC Timewatch Programme did this research..
Transhumance is the seasonal movement of people with their livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In the montane regions of northern Spain movement is between the lower valleys in winter and the high pastures in summer. The system of transhumance has existed since at least the Middle Ages and is very much alive and well in the Picos de Europa.
The first flocks of sheep appeared last Saturday evening, whilst a few stragglers went through as late as Monday morning. However the main movement around Carmeleno commenced before dawn last Sunday, herd after herd of cows going steadily upwards until late morning, all finally converging on the high pasture of Aliva.
This was no tourist show. This was a way of life that has existed for centuries.
(PS : If you are running the flickr hack or the Spanish version of flickr, you'll be able to clearly see three additional photos associated with this story. If you are running the new version of flickr, you'll have to search through the right-hand side bar and click on the photos to see them at a sensible size!)
This weekend's post is a combined historical Saturday Timewatch and Sunday Landscape, showing the view to west Dorset from a height of approximately 800' or 250 metres.
Although less well known than nearby Maiden Castle, this Iron Age hill fort is just as well preserved. The people on the slope give scale to the photo. Apparently Eggardon has never been seriously excavated by archaeologists. However it is thought to be defended settlement dating from around 300 BC. According to Wiki the name derives from an Old English place name, meaning "the hill belonging to Eohhere".
By the way, the flat hill on the horizon (just left of centre) is another hill fort known as Pilsdon Pen.
This week's Saturday Flashback dates from sometime between 1910 and 1936, when George V was on the throne. This rather rare post box is known as a "Ludlow Wall Box", made by the now-defunct James Ludlow and son, Birmingham.
Now that the Royal Mail has been privatised, how long will it be before such post boxes go the way of so many red telephone boxes?
It is not so easy for people to find where a photo has been taken on the flippin' new flickr. This was taken in Moreton, Dorset, England.
What a delight it was to listen to astronaut Buzz Aldrin on Series 5 of BBC's "Stargazing Live" last night. He really opened up with stories that I had not heard before, although I will readily admit what he said is included in Wikipedia's account of Apollo 11's mission to land the first human ever onto the Moon. One tale that stood out for me was the moment when he discovered the circuit breaker that would arm the main engine for lift off from the Moon was on the floor by the hatch and broken. Fortunately a felt-tip pen was sufficient to activate the switch. "So you had a spare felt-tip pen on board?" "No, we had A felt-tip pen!" Another moment was when the scientist from Jodrell Bank Observatory, which hosts "Stargazing Live", produced a sheet of paper showing how they had tracked the lander down to the Moon's surface, clearly showing the moment when Neil Armstrong had taken manual control and several subsequent manoeuvres as he attempted to successfully find a safe landing place. Apparently this information was only released in 2009, on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11. Buzz Aldrin was clearly fascinated to see something about the historic mission that he had never seen before.
The photo above was taken in 2010 at NASA'a Space Centre in Houston showing the badge of Apollo 11 (the Eagle has landed) and the staff in Mission Control.
This is the entrance to local woodland
taken in the thick of winter.
The former mining town of Cardenden lies on the South bank of the River Ore in the parish of Auchterderran, Fife, Scotland. It is approximately 4 miles North-West of Kirkcaldy. It was given its name in 1848 by the Edinburgh and Northern Railway for its new railway station.It was home to the poet Joe Corrie (1894 - 1968) who gives his name to the Corrie Centre. Bowhill by Cardenden was the home to Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson (1909 - 1931) who died aged 22 as a result of injuries sustained in a match against Rangers. He lies buried at Bowhill.
Cardenden is also the birthplace in 1960 of award-winning crime writer Ian Rankin.Carden Tower was built in the 16th Century by the Mertyne family of Medhope.The last duel in Scotland was fought on 2nd August 1826 in a field at Cardenbarns to the south of Cardenden. David Landale, a Kirkcaldy merchant fought George Morgan, a Kirkcaldy banker and retired professional soldier. Morgan retired as a Lieutenant from the 77th Regiment of Foot. Morgan was killed by wounds received from a pistol ball. Landale was tried and susequently cleared of his murder at Perth Sherrif Court.
The original pistols that David Landale used in the duel are housed in the Kirkcaldy Museum and Art Gallery. The duel itself was the subject of an episode of Timewatch on BBC television, broadcast on 9th February 2007 entitled "The Last Duel". The site is now the location of the Fife Community Off Road Motorcycle Club. The BBC News 24 chief political correspondent, James Lansdale, is a direct descendent of David Landale.
An open air museum operated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, built on the former industrial complex located in the Madeley area of Telford
On my return trip to Ironbridge - found out that this was made in 2002 for BBC Timewatch - recreating the Iron Bridge scaffolding as seen in a painting from the time the Iron Bridge was being built. (info at the Toll House at the Iron Bridge)
Oooooops......someone left the door open!
So it was a quick sneak inside and a couple of photos before security invited me to leave.
Today's Saturday Flashback is taken inside the large bottle kiln at Price and Kensington National Teapot Works, Longport, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. It was originally the Top Bridge Pottery. I am unsure of the oven's date of construction. However Top Bridge Works, with 7 bottle ovens, shows on the 1851 Ordnance Survey map. This bottle oven has been a Grade 2 Listed Building since 1979. Although presumably sufficiently protected by English Heritage, the surrounding site was sold in September 2012 though what its future usage will be remains unclear.
In this photo the 'hovel' (outer skin) can clearly be seen as well as the inner kiln (oven). The hovel acts as a chimney, taking away the smoke, creating air flow and protecting the kiln from the weather and uneven draughts. The iron bands are known as 'bonts' and go round the kiln to strengthen it as it expands and contracts during the firing.
Purely by coincidence, yesterday involved my one and only visit to Dallas on the 50th Anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. I was on a very long drive so there was no time to stop, merely gaze out across a dull and rainy downtown whilst driving by on the freeway.
JFK's assassination was one of those moments in history when the world stopped turning. Like most people of my age I remember where I was, in the living room with my parents, tea finished, watching BBC which was just about the only channel on the old b+w tele when the news broke.
Dating from the early 16th century, this is an example doorway (to a private house) in a well-known row of cottages at Cerne Abbas, Dorset. Farmers staked out their 'pitch' to sell bags of corn etc at the local market.
This week's Saturday Flashback juxtaposes the new and the old of American railroads.
On the left, unit 107 of the New Mexico Rail Runner Express fleet pulls into Santa Fe County / NM599 station whilst on the 97 mile run south from Santa Fe to Belen via Albuquerque. The commuter line has been fully operational since 2008. Here is a short video that nicely illustrates both the double decker carriages and the company logo. The head of a road runner features on the engine whilst the body stretches back along the carriage www.youtube.com/watch?v=c329GE_5gGE&list=FLkgDTkBXJqh...
On the right, 488 stands outside the engine shed of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad at Chama, New Mexico. Unfortunately their operating season didn't start until this weekend. It is a very high altitude route that has snow well into May. However, it was interesting to be able to wander around their yard. Here is a short video of the locomotive in full steam www.youtube.com/watch?v=iileDUnUTKY&list=FLkgDTkBXJqh...
This gem was hiding in the vinyl vaults from 1975. The main photo is Side A, with the flip side shown below. I have no information on V.Jones. However Jack Rubie is a legend in reggae circles. Despite the infamous Jack Ruby of Lee Harvey Oswald fame, Jack Ruby the reggae producer often spelt his name with a "y". He was also known as L.Lindo.
It was no surprise that YouTube have a great big blank hole concerning this record. However here is a clip of Jack Ruby's Soundsystem in live action. Producers often ran record shops and mobile soundsystems to supplement their income. Note the copious amounts of Red Stripe and the classic lovers rock track at 5.20!!
*swoon* what's not to love!!!!
BITHBOX#021
JACK RUBY HI POWER SOUND SYSTEM
British postcard by Statics, London, no. PC 81.
British stage and film actor Michael Praed (1960) is best known for his roles in the TV series Robin of Sherwood (1984-1985) and Dynasty (1985-1986). He also appeared in several British and American films, but somehow his promising film career went nowhere.
Michael Praed was born as Michael David Prince in Berkeley, England in 1960. His parents were Derrick and Kay Prince, with whom he spent his early years in Iran because his father worked as an accountant for a petroleum company. Michael was sent back to England for a public school education, which he did not enjoy. He attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. As there was already a Michael Prince listed in Equity, Michael chose the surname ‘Praed’ from the phone book. He began his career in repertory theatre before moving on to roles in London's West End. Praed's first big break occurred in playing in Joseph Papp's 1982 revival of The Pirates of Penzance with Tim Curry in the West End. The producers of the TV series Robin of Sherwood spotted Praed and cast him as Robin of Loxley a.k.a. Robin Hood. The BAFTA winning Robin of Sherwood (1984-1985) was a huge hit and gained an international cult status. After two successful seasons as Robin, Praed was lured to Broadway to star in The Three Musketeers. His Broadway adventure led to him being cast as Prince Michael of Moldavia in Aaron Spelling's prime time soap Dynasty (1985-1986). After this, Praed starred in the SciFi horror Nightflyers (Robert Collector, 1986), Writer's Block (Charles Correll, 1991), and Son of Darkness: To Die For II (David Price, 1991) . Between these B-films, Michael Praed worked on writing and recording music in his own studio.
At the end of 1991, Michael Praed left Los Angeles for the lead in an Irish production of Carousel. Immediately following this Rogers and Hammerstein musical, he found himself back in London playing the lead in the West End production of Aspects of Love by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The British televised mini-series, Riders (Gabrielle Beaumont, 1993) followed, based a novel by Jilly Cooper. His next stage endeavour was Harold Pinter's terse, tense drama The Caretaker. In 1994 he starred opposite Susannah York in the drama September Tide in the West End. Praed then dived into the role of the devious, womanizing Gary in the comedy film Staggered (Martin Clunes, 1994). Subsequently, he accepted a regular role in the British television series, Crown Prosecutor (John Stroud, 1995). In 1995, he returned once again to the West End as a lead, this time opposite Rachel Weisz in Noel Coward's Design for Living. The role was noteworthy in that Praed was brought as a replacement in the last two weeks of the run and learned the massive three act play over a single weekend. The next year was spent as the lead in Barry Manilow's Copacabana: The Musical, on its first national tour of Britain. He made a cameo as the Hitman in the film Darkness Falls (Gerry Lively, 1999) with Robin of Sherwood comrade Ray Winstone before heading for North America. There, Praed took the regular role of the Victorian aristocrat Phileas Fogg in the Canadian television series The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne (Gavin Scott, 2000), which developed a devoted following.
Michael Praed played The Queen in the film comedy 9 Dead Gay Guys (Lab Ky Mo, 2002), which was shunned at Cannes but won awards at other, smaller festivals. His next appearance was in Susan Stroman's Tony Award winning musical Contact back in London's West End (2003). He also appeared in such stage productions as Somerset Maugham's The Constant Wife, the musical Beautiful and Damned, Misery with Susan Penhaligon and in Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth. On TV he was seen in popular series as Casualty (2002-2003) and The Bill (2005). Along with his acting, Praed has also recorded a number of narrations. In 2007, Praed was a cast member of the Blake's 7 audio adventure Rebel for B7 Media. He portrayed passenger Nelson Morris in the docudrama Hindenburg: Titanic of the Skies (Sean Grundy, 2007) a re-examination of the German zeppelin's spectacular explosion over New Jersey on the eve of World War II. Praed has also been the regular narrator of Timewatch (2003-2009), BBC TV's award winning documentary series. He was married to Karen Landau from 1994 till their divorce in 2009. They have two children, son Gabriel (1994) and daughter, Frankie (1996). In recent years, Michael Traed appeared on stage as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (2009–2011), as Dexter Haven in High Society (2013) and as John Greenwood in The White Carnation (2014).
Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb.
During the latest Artsreach event, I learned more about the twists and turns of life and death in the reign of Henry V111 then I ever did in school history lessons!
Bob Whitley (right) wrote songs in chronological order to document the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn. On stage he was ably accompanied by Lee MacKenzie playing a Baroque cello....note the lack of a floor spike!
What struck me most were the shenanigans, power plays, backstabbing and intrigues within today's political parties are highly reminiscent of what went on in the court of Henry V111. The song below illustrates it very well.
bithbox # 235
Bob Whitley and Lee MacKenzie "Lady Rochford listens"
The above was recorded and produced by Jon Whitley, he of Ninebarrow. Bob is his father! Lee has also played on numerous Ninebarrow tracks and appeared with them on live internet shows.
It is often said "if you remember the sixties you weren't there". Well I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing one of my all-time favourite bands.....but i did get the poster!
More than 40 years on, much of their music still sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday.
BITH'S JUKEBOX # 220
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND "I'M WAITING FOR THE MAN"
Drop a coin in the slot :
“Then will come a new German Youth, trained from a young age for this new Country. Our Youth must learn nothing except to think like and act like Germans! We must get our boys into a Party organization at the age of 10, where they can be immersed in the totality of pure German spirit... Following this, we will put our young men into the ranks of the Labour Front, the Stormtroopers (SA), the Party Guards (SS), the Motorized Party Unit and so on. Then, if they have not become true National Socialists after two years in these organisations, we will re-process them through the Labour Front where they will experience another half-year of curative treatment... And if they still retain traces of class consciousness or aloofness from 'Germandom', the Wehrmacht will deal with them for another two years... In this way, they will never live freely but will spend their entire lives in the service of Germany!”
[From an address by Adolf Hitler to the Kreisleitern (County leaders), 2 December 1938; translated from an original German transcript in “Völkischer Beobachter”, 4 December 1938]
“People ask, why did I join the Hitler Youth, why did I volunteer to fight when I was 17? But they don't understand: we had no mind of our own. My education, my real education, started at the age of 22, in England. And I shall always be grateful to the people of the country for trying to educate me, or to find my own way. I think this is the way I should express it: to find my own way.”
[Bert Trautmann, interviewed in 2000 for the BBC 'Timewatch' series programme “The Germans We Kept”]
Bert Trautmann -as he would later be known- arrived at Camp 50 (Garswood Park, Ashton-in-Makerfield) from Camp 180 (Marbury Hall, Northwich) in June 1945, recruited to work as a driver for the commandant and his British subordinates and civilian support staff. At this stage the population of Camp 50 was still overwhelmingly Italian, and POW Trautmann occupied a kind of no-man's land, eating with the Italian POWs but sleeping in the British compound close to the main entrance on Warrington Rd. In many other respects he was typical of the young German POWs who began to arrive at Camp 50 from July/August 1945, housed initially in two discreet compounds or "hostels" within Garswood Park to the west of the main camp and at two similar facilities in Golborne Park. Enticed by the prospect of summer camping expeditions and participation in national soccer and athletics tournaments, he had been a willing recruit to the junior branch of the Hitler Youth (“Pimpfe”), leaving school and joining the Hitler Youth proper in 1936. On the outbreak of war he volunteered for the Luftwaffe, serving on the eastern front first as part of a ground-based communications unit but then as a paratrooper (“fallschirmjäger”). In 1941, still a few months short of his 18th birthday, he had witnessed the shooting of unarmed civilians -including children- by the notorious Einsatzgruppen, operating under cover of darkness in the Ukrainian forests. In May 1944, with the failure of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in the east and an Allied invasion of western Europe looking increasingly likely, his unit was redeployed to France. Here he faced the Allied forces in Normandy and the Pas de Calais, afterwards joining the German retreat and taking part in the Battle of the Bulge before his capture near the German-Dutch border on 24 March 1945. His journey to Ashton-in-Makerfield was via POW camps at Weeze-on-Rhine and St Forte (Belgium), Kempton Park and Marbury Hall.
The British authorities had begun a programme of screening and re-education of German POWs in 1940, but in September 1944 the War Cabinet put this on a more formal footing and entrusted its delivery to the Foreign Office's Political Intelligence Department (PID). As later recalled by Executive Field Officer Henry Faulk, the objectives were “to eradicate from the minds of the prisoners belief in the German military tradition and the National Socialist ideology...; to impart to the prisoners an accurate understanding and a just appreciation of the principles of democratic government... [and] to remove German misconceptions about European history of the last 50 years and especially about the origin, conduct and results of the two world wars”.* To determine how receptive they might be to the programme, and to monitor its effectiveness, the POWs were periodically screened and graded as either-
A (White): actively anti-Nazi and anti-militarist;
B (Grey): no strong political convictions, possibly of lower intelligence but nevertheless amenable to instruction; or
C (Black): those who still adhered to Nazi and/or militarist ideology and values.
The results of the re-education programme were mixed. Several factors militated against it. Many German POWs had learned to distrust authority figures, and consequently viewed the entire process with suspicion. Whilst some of the lecturers and screeners engaged by PID were well-received, a significant number were German émigrés who had left before the Nazi era and therefore had little understanding of what life under Hitler had been like for ordinary Germans. Thirdly, the prospect of indefinite detention in a foreign country notwithstanding the German surrender in May 1945 bred a general resentment which even the most dedicated and sympathetic screeners and lecturers found difficult to overcome.** POW Trautmann was not alone in showing almost total disinterest in the official re-education and screening sessions – an attitude which may explain why, as late as August 1947, there were still 1,530 prisoners at Camp 50 graded B or B-.
Ultimately, the best method of re-education proved to be exposure to the local civilian population. In the report of its final inspection of Camp 50 in March 1948, PID was forced to concede that
“Organised re-educational activities in this camp have impressed but few. Lectures become more and more unpopular... Since the beginning of 1947 [when restrictions on fraternisation between POWs and British civilians within a five-mile radius of Camp 50 were lifted], re-education has passed into the hands of the population of Lancashire, whose friendliness has proved a great help. The ordinary workmen [of the district are] responsible for the fact that the majority of the PsW in this camp is pro-British”.
Other PID inspection reports at National Archives ref. FO 939/132 (“Prisoner of War Camps: 50 Working Camp, Garswood Park, Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire”) and copies of the Camp 50 newspaper etc at ref. FO 939/300 (“Reports on Camp Lectures...”) shed further light on conditions in the Camp.
*H Faulk, “Group Captives: The Re-education of German Prisoners of War in Britain, 1945-1948” (Chatto & Windus, 1977).
**This was particularly the case with POWs recently transferred by ship from camps in the USA who, prior to docking at Liverpool, had naturally assumed they were being taken back to Germany. The Bishop of Sheffield suggested to members of the House of Lords that it was “a little simple to expect that by keeping them behind barbed wire, giving them no hope of release for an indefinite period of time, they will be susceptible to re-education and will presently become docile little democrats” (Lords Official Report, 11.7.1946, col 382).