´óÏó´«Ã½

Lying about his age, Bob had already served in the Royal Irish Fusiliers during the First World War. When the R.I.F. was disbanded in the early 1920’s he was transferred to the ambulance unit in the Royal Army Service Corps. Living in Bovington army camp, he married and had a family, and between the wars he spent quite a bit of time ‘moonlighting’ in the booming showbiz industry, where he Pioneered the famous ‘wall of death’, first at Bell Vue in Manchester. This was where a motorcycle went round the inside of a cylinder at speed, so defying the laws of gravity. He then took it to Blackpool and introduced the first car on the wall; this was a Morgan three-wheeler.

In 1939 he was called to action, and was amongst the first British troops to land in France, but after twice going back into the water, couldn’t get picked up. He had to make a run for it and headed for Rheims, but unfortunately was shot twice in the leg and was captured. The only place he could be taken was a badly damaged hospital to have his wounds seen to. There he stayed, first as a patient, and then because of his experience in the ambulance unit, worked with the medical staff. He helped to care for allied prisoners of war, French civilians and even the wounded Germans that had earlier tried to kill him, When he had fully recovered, he was sent to Stalag 8b, where he was at first considered for repatriation early in 1941 because of his injury, but instead he was sent to Stalag 21a in Poland.

He arrived in this vast prisoner of war camp where morale was even lower than he could ever have imagined it. It wouldn’t have seemed possible to visualise it at the time, but this was where Bob, with his ‘showbiz background’ would shine. Hard to believe, but there was quite a surprising amount of freedom within the confines of the camp, which meant spare time and nothing to fill it. Bob’s mind was already working overtime, with all these men from every walk of life, including carpenters, painters, plumbers, electricians. There were also musicians, professional singers and entertainers, plus loads of undiscovered acting talent.

There were plenty of empty huts in this massive P.O.W. camp, so Bob took it upon himself to apply for the use of one of these huts, with a view to converting it into a small theatre, and permission was granted.

Stage groups had to be organised, with the difficulty of convincing hard soldiers that dressing up like a woman was ‘OK’. Carpenters made a stage and even a professional artist painted the backdrops. To make backdrops, costumes and props etc., everything and anything useful found its way back to Bob. Any spare clothing, string, cardboard, paper and even empty tin cans, mainly from the odd Red Cross parcel that managed to find its way through, would be utilised. A problem was that nearly everything they obtained was white, whether it was backdrops, clothes or even the string that was teased into wigs. This meant that nearly everything had to be dyed or coloured.
Keeping in mind that even the ordinary German soldier wasn’t getting it all his own way, with food shortages, not knowing whether they had lost family in the bombings, and also living life in a prisoner of war camp in Poland. Their morale wasn’t exactly sky high, plus Montgomery had been hitting the Germans quite hard in the Western desert. This meant that a few guards were open to the odd ‘exchange’. It seemed that every lad in the camp chipped in with something every week, whether it was a couple of spoonfuls of coffee or cocoa, a slice of margarine, every little bit was collected and saved. From this ‘fund’ they were able to exchange for colour dyes, paint and other forms of contraband. With Bob being brought up with seven sisters, and all dressmakers, he was obviously quite handy with a needle and thread, so creating costumes was second nature to him. Eventually all the hard work paid off and they put their first show on to a full house. Bob wrote it, made the costumes for it and even took part in it. It wasn’t long before word about the ‘theatre’ had spread throughout the camp and they were turning prisoners away. In fact, in all, they performed a total of 26 shows and each one was to a full ‘hut’.

There was another reason for the theatre - it created a distraction. The German officers were suspicious, and nearly every night ordered a search of the hut and its contents. Whilst the guards were searching the hut, there was another group trying to put on another kind of show, it was an escape committee. Unfortunately, out of 200 attempted escapes, only two made it all the way home from Poland, with a third reaching the Swiss border before being shot by a German border patrol. All too often the attempted escape would end with a burst of gunfire, and the sad business of a Military Funeral. I know he didn’t actually hold any bitterness towards his captors, as he once said, we had a duty to try to escape and they had a duty to try to prevent it. This was despite having been cracked across the face with a rifle butt which removed quite a number of teeth.

When Bob first arrived at Stalag 21a, for obvious reasons, the prisoners were at their lowest, but within months of being there, he had raised morale to an unbelievable level. For this, Corporal Robert Clifton Roden received his ‘Mention in Dispatches’ as prisoner 1405. His award was ‘for his morale boosting efforts towards his fellow prisoners, and being an inspiration and leading figure within Stalag 21a’

Eventually, Bob was repatriated in 1943 along with many injured, sick, blind or disabled prisoners. They were shipped home via Sweden, arriving to an emotional reception at Leith.

‘This story was submitted to the People’s War site by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Merseyside’s People’s War team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with his/ her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.’

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.