大象传媒

4 May 2005

George Charlton, born in West Stanley County Durham on 4 February 1919. I can remember the 1926 strike. I was 7 years old, and what I remember most was having to go to the soup kitchens to get a bowl of soup. My family moved from West Stanley to East Stanley just before I started school. The school I attended is now in the Beamish Museum, also the chapel I went to, also parts of the pit I worked in. I passed my 11+ exams and went to Ann Field Plain Intermediate School, which was previously called The Upper Standards. I can still remember the head masters name (Mr. Bolum). The only other teacher I can remember was (Mr. Knags). He was my maths teacher, which is my favorite subject; I suppose that is why I remember him.

I left school on my 14th Birthday, and started work the next day down Jackie鈥檚 Pit as a pony driver. When I was 16 I became a putter, you鈥檒l have to be a miner to know what a putter does, roughly you push the tubs of coal from the coal face to a siding where they are collected by the drivers. The pit closed when I was 17 so they transferred me to another one called Chophill Colliery. I stayed there for a year and decided to move on. So in the summer of 1937 I moved to Birmingham. After four days of being in Birmingham I managed to get a job in a Brass Foundry (Newey and Taylors), where I worked for the next 39 years, which include the 6.5 years I spent in the army.

I was called up or what you call conscripted in September 1939. I was sent to Cowley Barracks in Oxford to do my training. It was here in the following month that I met my wife and we will be celebrating our Diamond Wedding next month on June 2nd .

I was shipped off to France and that was the last time I saw my now wife for 5.5 years. We were married 26 days after I came home from Poland as I was a P.O.W. I will try to recall a few things that may be of interest, since this is the reason I am writing this whatever you want to call it. Writing isn鈥檛 one of my strong points but, nevertheless here goes: We sailed from Southampton to the Isle of White, anchored over night and completed our journey the next day and landed at Cherbourg. From there we moved inland to a place called Bacquepea (I wander if this Bricquebec?), this may be spelt wrong but the pronunciation is correct. We were billeted on a farm sleeping in Barns and various out buildings. As far as I can remember I was here for about a month and we carried on doing bits of training. None of us privates knew what was going on, we only knew we could move any day. I didn鈥檛 keep any records so most of the following is from memory. Towards the end of March we marched, walked call it what you will to Belgium and it was here I saw my first bit of action. We were told what to do, single file, spread out or what have you. We slept where we could, mostly in Barns but a couple of times we weren鈥檛 so lucky and slept in ditches. We were told to spread out, as we went through a wood, and this is where we had our first casualties, we believe it was snipers. When we went through the towns in Belgium the people cheered us, but it was a different tune when we came out as German prisoners. We walked under guard all the way to Germany, eating stations were set up on route, we were given a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. Sometimes we had a drink of coffee and do you know that was the first time I ever had coffee. After about four or five weeks on the road we eventually reached our destination. Stalag 8B which is in Lamsdorf near Kambinowice.

We were lined up in the camp then counted, and this was to be our twice daily routine Line up and be counted. We were put into huts about 100 in each hut. The beds were long benches running the length of the hut and were in not double bunks but triple.

We were each issued with 1 blanket and a straw palliasse. Eventually we were given the usual bowl of soup and a piece of bread. The following morning after the usual count we were told to get in lines to have our hair cut. This was done with horse shears, the old fashioned kind. One German turned the handle while another ran the shears around your head. You would have thought these supposed superior race would have had a prisoner turn the handle. Over the next few days we were asked various questions, are you single or married? What was your occupation in civy street? Things like that, the answers some of them gave was really funny. One was a lion tamer, another told fortunes. We were given identity discs with a P.O.W. number on it. Mine was 10169 my army number was 5387389. After a few days we were glad to have our short haircut, as we became crawling with lice.

Washing facilities were poor, our clothes were filthy and we did the best we could to wash them. The clothes they issued to us were Polish or French army uniforms. The worst things they gave us were clogs. These had wooden soles and scrap pieces of leather, which were held together by rivets. We didn鈥檛 have socks supplied, but two square pieces of cloth the size of a handkerchief. You wrapped these around your feet to wear with your clogs, we called these pieces of rag fooselapping. The time dragged we were always hungry, all we could think about was food. P.O.W. Life opened my eyes meeting all the various people, we had Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and soldiers from the Channel Islands. The biggest surprise I had was when they wanted some details done, like peeling potatoes and what do you know the sergeants and corporals did this so they could help themselves to a few potatoes. That鈥檚 when I found out they were no better than a private. After a couple of weeks of being counted and counted again and hearing the word Adel so many times being shouted by the German guards. I found out it meant on parade. Apel, marche, snell, one got sick of hearing it. On parade, march, and quickly and over and over again.

The Germans photographed us and sent the photo home to show that we were still alive. Here is the photo of me which was sent back to my mum and dad.

After about a couple of weeks, we were put into groups. I was in a group of about 40 of us. We were marched out of the gates escorted by 3 or 4 guards. After about half an hours walk we ended up on a building site, which I found out later was Siemens a well known firm. Here we were put to work doing various Jobs laboring; under a German civilian who was a foreman or charge hand or something. One day I was carrying bricks, another moving bags of cement, shoveling sand; anything, just a general dogsbody. At least it broke the monotony. We were given a bowl of soup and a slice of bread at midday. When we got back to camp we were given the usual soup and piece of bread, of course we always got a mug of coffee, there was plenty of that. Before we marched off to work we had the usual coffee and slices of bread, sometimes with cheese or jam. We even had black pudding a couple of times. We were paid each week, I can鈥檛 remember exactly how much, but it certainly wasn鈥檛 over paid. It was enough to buy the essentials we needed, like razor blades, tooth paste and soap powder to wash our cloths or at least try. This job lasted for about a month, you could count the time because we used to have Sundays off, (a day of rest) Apel, marche, snell even on Sundays. The next job I had also lasted about a month. It was in a paper mill, my job was putting wood into a chopping machine. The wood was just like pit props, how boring, but we had our midday meal to look forward to. You guessed it soup, the usual bread and coffee.

My next job lasted 3 or 4 months, it was in a sugar beet factory, I was always reminded of it when we used to visit my daughter when she used to live in Stourport. We had to pass through Kidderminster. That鈥檚 where they have a sugar beet factory. I don鈥檛 know if it is still there, as we don鈥檛 go that way anymore. My task at the factory was to carry the sacks of sugar as they came off the conveyor belt and stack them in their appropriate place. It was a bit difficult the first couple of days, but once you got the knack of how to balance them on your shoulders it was no problem. We got the usual snack for lunch but were able to put a bit of sugar on our bread this made a change. Of course we were able to sneak some back to camp in our pockets, this we used to barter with other prisoners, or sell it for the special money they had printed. It was pink and just looked like a bus ticket, only made of ordinary paper, by the way the pay was the same. I was still working here when we had our first Xmas as a P.O.W. I can remember it quite well as we had our first Red Cross parcel, one between two. Most of us had palled up with someone so it was no problem sharing. We had 2 days off for Xmas. We played cards and various games as some of the luckier ones had personnel parcels sent through. We were allowed 1 letter and 2 post cards each month and these we could send back home. I used to send the letter to my girl friend and the cards home. Sometimes I was able to barter for an extra card with my sugar. You couldn鈥檛 leave any food around as there was so much pilfering going on all eatables we disposed of straight away.

I was able to send to my girlfriend a picture of a group of us at Stalag 8B.

This job in the sugar beet factory lasted until March, after that I was back in the camp full time. This only lasted about 5 or 6 days, the next job I had was the last as a P.O.W. I was moved this time by train, there must have been about 80 to 100 of us. We traveled in cattle trucks, which was not very comfortable as you could only stand. I don鈥檛 know how long the journey was but it seemed a long one. I remember we stopped once to have the usual bowl of soup with a slice of bread and coffee. When we next left the train at last we had completed our journey and found ourselves in Poland. We walked from the station to a new camp. It was nothing like Stalag VIII B. It looked as if it had been a small school, as there was a sort of play ground and the building had a number of rooms of various sizes. We were lined up in the play ground, which gave me a chance to see that it was fenced in with high barbed wire, so they must have prepared it for us. There were only 8 guards plus 1 of a higher rank in charge. We were counted again as usual, and then split up in groups of various numbers. I noticed there were only 8 in our group, most were in groups of 12 or 14. We didn鈥檛 have to wait long before we found out why, these were the numbers allocated to each room and I felt lucky as there was only eight of us. We did nothing that day other than collect our palliasse, blanket and pillow. There was one big room with a long table and forms to sit on. There was a stove at each end of the room. The toilets are quite normal, these you could flush, not like the ones at Stalag 8B where you sat on a wooden sort of bench with a round hole.

So you see we were being treated a little more civilized. Our first meal was much better it had been cooked by our own cooks, which we also found out later. They had come with us from Stalag 8B and were army cooks so that was their job for the duration. We also found out that day what our future job was going to be. We were to become coal miners. This didn鈥檛 bother me in the least as I had done my apprenticeship when I was 14. We were to be put into 2 groups so that we could work in shifts. We decided it would be better if we had 4 on each shift so that we could always have someone in the room at all times. We found this worked a treat, especially when Red Cross parcels arrived. They came from home, Australia and Canada and didn鈥檛 we look forward to them. We in our room decided to pool ours and anything else we could barter. This worked well especially with tea and milk powder. Tea went much farther when shared. We found we could have a pot a couple of times each day, well most days. There was always a little extra food, like tinned beans, corned beef, cheese, pilchards, meat loaf, hard tac and various other things like soap and chocolate, also drinking chocolate sometimes. These latter things we found very useful as we bartered them with the civilians we worked with. A loaf of bread went better on an empty stomach than a bar of chocolate or a bar of soap. After a couple of weeks we resigned ourselves to a little bit of comfort. The food was a big improvement and we were having regular meals, not big meals but with the parcels and the bartering we didn鈥檛 do too bad. The P.O.W.鈥檚 worked on the coal face. Their job was to fill the tubs with coal. In most cases the normal format was 1 German, 2 Poles and 2 P.O.W鈥檚. Working together and most of them got along together. We worked 6 days a week and had a free Sunday, when we played cards and various board games which had been sent from home. I picked up quite a bit of Polish and German, on which I could get by. So much so I was put on another job, sort of part time interpreter. I was put with a Pole who was a pipe fitter. I was his laborer. We had to do pipe repairs and extend them were necessary. They were for compressed air so that drills could be worked and also air pipes. We still got the same pay 70 Fenings a week. I think it was about 3s 6d a week. With the regular food we were now having our bodies were returning to normal, our strength was coming back. We were able to get rid of the lice. What a pleasure to get into bed have a good sleep without having to scratch all the while.

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