- Contributed by听
- derbycsv
- People in story:听
- Mrs Norma Woolfrey, Mr John Woolfrey
- Location of story:听
- Singapore and Derby
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A5250629
- Contributed on:听
- 22 August 2005
This is a telegram John was able to send home to his mother. All mail was censored.
This story was submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of Norma Woolfrey. The author has given her permission, and fully understands the site's terms and conditions
My husband John Woolfrey worked on the railway in Thailand, while he was a POW. He was there for over three years. I didn't meet him until after the war.
He didn't get home until 1945, because he was right up near the Burma border. He was amongst the last POW's to be released. His mother wrote to him, but the Japanese kept hold of them.
They all had boiled rice, twice a day-if they were lucky. They all came home by boat. When he was checked over they found he had TB. He was in hospital for over a year.
He had been in the Army since 1936. In 1938 he went to Singapore to work at the Headquarters. He had to keep quiet about his job.
We eventually met at the Plasa ballroom in Derby. He was a good dancer but would only dance twice.
We then bumped into each other again at the hospital. I found out he was the second person in Derby to have both lungs collapsed at the same time. They treated him very well because he was a POW. He had to go every week to have air pumped into his lungs. Because of this he had difficulty finding work after the war.
In 1949 we got married in Derby.
While he was in Singapore, I was spending the war years in Derby at home with my parents. I went to Homelands Grammer School. It was very strict with full uniform. We had to carry round our gas masks and tin hats. If we forgot them we had to go straight home again.
I remember in the days before the war, teachers were not allowed to marry. Of course this all changed when war began. My favourite teacher, Miss Often soon became Mrs Arter. It was a big deal to have a married teacher and she was lovely.
We used the cellar in the garden as our air raid shelter. We made ourselves trousers so we could quickly pull them over our pajama's. It was very cold down there. My mother was a wonderful person, and she used to shake with nerves during the raids. This made me nervous too.
Part two of this story can be found at bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5250908
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