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The first place they took us was to (some) racing stables near Falais. That was a sort of holding camp. From there, once they got a few hundred prisoners together, they put us all together then, and trucked us down to Chartres, just north of Paris, into the prison. That was where the second camp was. But these were all transit camps, they weren't Stalags. Then the first Stalag we went to, they put us on a train at Chartres and then took us to Camp 9A at Alencon, which was in northern France. We were at Alencon for something like ten days, and from there they put us on another train - cattle wagons, not coaches, forty of us to a cattle wagon.

Although there was straw on the floor, there was no blankets, no nothing. They just put us in these cattle wagons and shut the doors, and that was it. And we was on this train for six days. And people who can remember, remember what the summer was like in 1944 - it was really hot. And we were shut in these cattle wagons, no water, no food, nothing at all. And I always remember a chap that was laying down next to me, he had his small pack that he kept on his back, and he had his mess tins in there. And one day we had a thunderstorm, and in these cattle wagons there were slits, about three or four inches wide at the top of the wagon for air, and we had this thunderstorm, and he used to put his mess tins outside and catch the rain off the roof. And it was black with the soot off the trains, which had collected off the roof, but still we drank it. And it was most degrading because all we had in the carriage was a bucket in the middle, nothing around it for privacy. It was most degrading really if you wanted to go to the toilet, you had to got and sit on this bucket and everyone else was looking - couldn't do anything else really. But anyway, this went on for six days; and then we ended up at a place called Teschen on the borders of Czechoslovakia and Poland and Germany. And that camp we got to was 8B, Stalag 8B.

When we got there, of course we saw, as we called them old lags - prisoners that had been taken prisoner from Dunkirk and all the way through '42 and '43 and of course they was all hungry for news. But the Germans kept us apart, they wouldn't let us go anywhere near them. Except that after four or five days somebody did go out and go over, speaking to these men and told them all the news, and of course that bucked them up no end. We was at Teschen I suppose for a week, maybe a fortnight, then we was put on another train, only the prisoners that had been taken in Normandy, because the Germans didn't have any time for us, they called us bandits anyway! And we got on this train and they took us to a place called - the Germans renamed this place in Poland Bindenberg but the Polish name was Brzeg. That was where we went to work in the coal mines.

That would have been in Silesia.

Silesia, yes. They put us to work in the coal mines. Some of the chaps went off on what we called face work, on machines. The first job they put me on was at the junction of two conveyor belts. The coal would come down one conveyor belt and then go off at right angles down another conveyor belt and I had to make sure that the conveyor belts didn't get jammed up, to keep them moving all the time. The first day I went down there it really frightened the life out of me because right at the corner where these conveyor belts joined together, there was pit props and they were just ordinary pit props but they were in a cross section, two going one way and two going another way until they got up to the ceiling. Every so often these pit props used to creak (laughs) and that frightened the life out of me - I thought this bloody lot's going to come in in a minute, but no, it didn't. But I had several funny moments down there. In this mine in Germany there was no methane gas, and all the miners’ lamps we had, gas carbide lamps, they were open. They put me on a job one day with a chap that was transporting steel pit props up from one level up to another. They put me with this chap and I had to load the pit props on to a trolley. He was a hundred yards or so away from me. All I could see was a little light from his lamp. When I had the pit props loaded I had to bang twice on the compressed air lines - steel tubes and off they should go. Then one day they was blasting down in the mine and a wave of air came through and blew my light out and I didn't have a match or anything. So the only thing I could do was hang my light on the front of the trolley, two taps, and up my lamp went with the trolley and I couldn't see a thing, hundreds of feet below ground, black, black, and all I could see was this light up at the end of this tunnel. Was I relieved when next thing I saw was my light coming down, and the light getting bigger and bigger as it came near me!

That was a scary moment. Another job they put me was with a Polish chap, Anteg his name was, that was his Christian name, and his job was going round looking at pitfalls and I used to go round with him. He would never let me go into a seam where there had been a fall until he'd been in. If he thought it was safe, then he'd come back and say come on. He was darned nice chap. He told me he had two or three children. If we had been found out, he would have been shot and so would I, but I gave him the half a bar of milk chocolate, Cadbury's milk chocolate, because his children never knew what chocolate was! And I used to give him half a bar of my Cadbury's chocolate. He used to give me an onion sandwich every morning. If the Germans had found out, God knows what would have happened! At another time, they gave me a job on top of the shaft, with two more British prisoners, and one day there was a big girl, she was a size she was! And she looked down, and she would smile, and if nobody was looking, I'd put my hand up and wave to her. One day she was looking down at me, and she was looking around like she usually did, and the next thing I saw was her hand go round to one of the coal trucks - she dropped a little package in it. So I counted all the trucks back, made sure that I got the one where the package was, and this girl had given me one of her sandwiches. I'll always remember that - and she did that all the time I was there on the pit top.

But then in January, all that came to an end because the Germans came in a six o'clock one morning, with their rifles, banging on the bed: "Raus, raus", and we all had to get up, dress, out on roll call, and we never went back in the shed again. That time we went on a death march. And that was something terrible, that was. They call it the death march because so many people died on it - froze to death. If anybody knows what an East European winter is like they'll understand. When we left the camp it was snowing hard and all we had was the clothes we stood up in, overcoats and boots and any uniform we had left.

We was - I can't say it was marching, we was strolling along, like. This went on for about a month, or at least it did for me, until I had just about enough. I also remember if we was lucky and was near a farm or something, they put us in a barn. But if we weren't, then all you did was got down and slept in the snow. But I'll always say that my Army training and thinking of home, that's what go me through it. So many people died on that march, it's really incomprehensible. But they were mostly Russians - the Germans had no time whatsoever for Russians. We used to go for days on end without food, because there wasn't any to be had. The best meal I had on that march was when we went into a farm. The German farmer in there was brewing up potatoes for his pigs. He had one of these Army boilers, and we went into this farm and before he knew it that boiler was empty! You'd never seen such a mess in your life - you know what they boil up for pigs... Well we scoffed it. The only hot meal we'd had in a month or more. It's surprising, once you've had a hot meal, it bucks you up a bit. If you're cold, as soon as you've got a bit a hot food in your stomach, it boosts you up a bit. I always remember on this march they told us we was going to have a salad meal one night. We got to this place where there was a dump, and everybody filed past, and they gave us a tin. And it was runner beans, and they was froze solid. And that was the salad meal that we had!

I started getting frostbite in my toes, so I fell out. They put us in a barn - supposed to have been a hospital, but it was a barn, there was no doctor or anything there. All they gave us there was a slice of bread every day and a bit of butter, but nothing much. Then one day I heard a chap bargaining with a chap - I don't know if he was a German or what he was. He was bargaining his signet ring for a loaf of bread. When I saw this chap again - I told my wife not long ago - that's what I did with her signet ring: and I got a half a loaf of bread with that. But it kept me going. We couldn't take our clothes off - we wore the same clothes for weeks and weeks - but I slept with this loaf inside my jacket with the collar turned up - if I hadn't, someone would have pinched it a bit quick! All I could do was break a bit off every so often, have a nibble. I'm sure that kept me going.

And where did you end up?

I ended up at Nuremburg. I think this was only about three weeks or so before we was released, they put us on a train, and I suppose they said "You can escape if you want to, you won't get very far, now the War's nearly over" - they put us on this train and left the door wide open. So we sat, looking out at the countryside, the Bavarian countryside, lovely that was. Anyway, we got to Nuremberg and we was in the camp there and it was there that I was struck down with dysentery - I was in a bit of a state. And all they gave us there was powdered charcoal, for anything like that. I don't know how long I was there - we ate just what we could get hold of.

Then one day, we could hear the American guns firing from quite a way away, one day we heard the rumble of tanks, and then somebody went out and shouted "The Yanks are here!" and of course we all rushed to the gate and there he was - a Sherman tank coming up the roadway and the German guard, with his rifle slung over his shoulder, one moment he was a guard, the next moment he was a prisoner! This Sherman tank came up, straight through the gates, didn't stop, and everybody shouted "We're free!" Don't know how long afterwards, the Americans came round with Compo packs, sausage and beans in tins, everybody went mad. Well, it was the worst thing you could possible have done. Everybody was suffering from stomach problems, because they didn't just have a spoonful of beans, they had a couple of tins, and that was no good at all!

Your stomachs had shrunk.

Yes, and we all had had lice, covered with lice; bed bugs.... I don't know how long it was we were there before they took us out and took us to Nuremberg Airport, and there we was put on Dakotas and flown back to Ostend. Oh, before we left Nuremberg - I always said 'tis my claim to fame, we were in a bloody great big marquee, and an American bloke comes through and says, "Gangway chaps! Make way for ...." and anyway all of a sudden in walks Marlene Dietrich, and she walked by us, waving her hands and what have you; and anyway before we got on the plane for Ostend, she came out and I had my photograph taken with her. On the steps of the Dakota. This American photographer was there and says "I don't know where to send a copy of the photograph..." and somebody shouts out "Send it to the News of the World".

Of course, in those days the News of the World was notorious - everybody read it for scandal. I bought the News of the World for weeks and weeks on end, and that photograph never came out! (laughs). So I've got no proof!

Anyway, they took us back to Ostend and there we were deloused and given baths and clean clothes. Then from there we were put on a boat to Tilbury. That was the first good meal I had, on the boat, they had a stew with white bread and butter. I can see it now; the butter was thick on the bread, the stew thick with meat! Beautiful! Anyway we got to Tilbury and we were put on the train there to Haywards Heath, where we had documentation and what have you. Then from there it was home.

So that was how my War went.

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