大象传媒

We read or watch films of War, POW camps, escapes, and so on, and amid all the clamour and excitement we ignore or miss out on a movement or group of people who even today in peace time quietly go out of their way to bring help and relief to the less fortunate of us who sometimes through our own stupidity or accident find ourselves in dire situations.
What prompted me to jot this down?

I got to thinking that while writing all this 鈥淏ang, you are dead" stuff a lot of other material was left out, like, 鈥淭hursday we got a Red Cross parcel between two men鈥� "What is wrong with that?" One might be tempted to casually warble.
Well!, having read an advertisement in a newspaper, 鈥淲anted, bath for baby with a copper bottom鈥� one may want to peruse the two men bit again.
It could have possibly made more sense to warble,鈥淥ne Red Cross parcel was shared by two men.鈥�
However it all depends on which School one began playing marbles in.
When one sticks to the Kings English one loses the rhythm of a story and if a person can jot down ones thoughts as they enter ones head then the reader gets a fresh and original yarn to read at times with humour,
I suppose it is in a way the same as painting in oils, when one paints a picture sticking rigidly to the rules no one give it a second glance but if someone paints something outrageous he gets a million dollars for it.
So with that in mind if I wander a bit don鈥檛 worry too much because all this is true and you get cat 鈥榥鈥� skin 鈥榥鈥� all so to speak.
Anyway we have read that parcels were issued but what was never mentioned was what was in those parcels.
A Red Cross parcel would be made of very strong cardboard and would be in two parts, the bottom half and the top half.
The top half covered the bottom half and the bottom half fitted snugly into the top half and was secured by strong string. Not unlike a shoe box except this lid reached to the bottom of the bottom half making a double barrier against damage to the contents at the sides.
It had a Red Cross stamped on one corner and on another corner it was stamped Croix Rouge.
Since there was no mention of Germany or Italy it led us to presume that El Duce Fatso Musso and Herr Dumb Kopf the Mad Painter were not the flavor of the month or for that matter for the four years of the WW2.
The color of the cardboard on the inside of the box was light grey but the outside was a beige to light brown colour. The size of the box in cm were roughly 40 by 20 by 20
The contents of each parcel varied, but among a group of POW we could swap what we didn鈥檛 like.
A typical parcel would contain the following,

1 bar of Cadbury鈥檚 nut and fruit chocolate or simular
1 tin of Klim (Canadian dried milk powder) or 1 tin of Carnation evaporated milk or 1 tin of Nestles condensed sweetened milk.
1 tin of Player鈥檚 cigarettes (50) or 1 tin of Digger flake pipe tobacco.
1 tin of Irish stew or simular.
1 tin of rice pudding or simular.
1 tin of Fray Benthos corned beef. or 1 tin of pilchards.
1 tin of sardines.
1 small round tin of cheese.
1 tin of jam or marmalade.
1 packet of cream cracker biscuits.
1 tin of butter, usually Canadian, and I used to love the way it squeezed through the holes in a cream cracker biscuit.
1 tin of coffee.
And other yummy stuff.
You would not believe the mischief one could get up to if one got a tin of coffee in ones parcel.
It used to happen like this, 鈥�.one of our blokes perhaps has done a bit of washing and hangs it out on a line between the barracks to dry. Sounds a bit mundane but there is a lot more to that than meets the eye.
To begin with he has chosen that particular spot to hang his line.
When he washes his gear out he can dry it on that line.
Since he has chosen a spot near his window he can now sit by that window and while reading all about Betty Grable he can make sure no one nicks his apparel or what passes for a uniform.
While devouring Betty鈥檚 picture on the front of his book and nibbling on his nails, I thought it鈥榮 a good job we don鈥檛 have mental telepathy or he would be barging into Betty鈥檚 mind just as she was having a cup of tea in her favourite restaurant, 鈥淥.K. Blondie, ah鈥檓 鈥榚re, etc.
While chatting up Betty, this nutty fruit character would now and again tear his gaze from the page as he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye.
He would appraise the approaching Ferret (a roaming at will Guard inside the camp) and a couple of sharp taps on the wooden wall would alert any ne-er do well to desist in his enterprise until the all clear was given.
Sometimes he would leap up and yell 鈥淭here鈥檚 a truck at the main gate鈥�.
Some blokes with minds like an African hippo's mud wallow would immediately scramble to the nearest windows with tongues hanging out with cries of 鈥淲here, where?鈥� probably expecting, and particularly since they were here in
Kraut land where the keep fit Fraulein paraded around in skimpy knickers and no socks or was it the other way round? I forget.
However! the droll reply from our mate with the book would be 鈥淚 said TRUCK鈥�
Then we would have to wait until the main gate was opened and the truck came into the Camp to see if it contained a contingent of the Gestapo, coming to look for some one hiding in our Camp or somebody to thump because their thumping quota was down.
But on finding out from the Camp Commandant that this Camp was not political but was indeed a P.O.W. camp and held Brit Soldiers they changed their minds and went elsewhere to fulfil their sadistic desires safe in the knowledge they would not get thumped in return by people who were at death鈥檚 door already, or children too weak to resist.
If it was a Red Cross truck we knew it would not be long before the gate would be opened by the German Guard on the gate.
Looking bored to tears the Guard was standing like a dead Christmas tree near the middle gate.
Then on spotting one of our blokes on the other side of the wire sitting on the steps of the nearest hut, nonchalantly tearing the blue and gold label off a block of Cadbury nut and fruit chocolate, and making a big deal out of getting the silver paper off as he glanced sneakily to see if the Guard was watching.
The Guard seeing him looking his way would hastily transfer his gaze to the clouds.
Desperately trying not to drule down the front of his uniform and trying to assess by the look of the clouds how long it would be before it p----d down, as if he didn鈥檛 have enough misery.
Getting wet through and standing there for another hour and a half while watching some yobbo trying to poke a bar of Cadbury鈥檚 Nut and Fruit though the back of his neck from the front was not the ideal way to spend an afternoon.
Our mate with the choc block could not be bothered to break bits off.
So offering the bar of sweet brown delight to his noshing gear and making a rough guess, he bit down on two squares narrowly missing his fingers, and closed his eyes as his tongue and gums tasted the delight of years of effort by Cadbury and Co.
The Guard who had been watching and drooling, bit down on his tongue at the same time.

Have you have ever been to the dogs dear reader?
You know the dog races where all the dogs are straining at the leash, and the electric fur cum pussycat flashes past like a speeding bullet.
The dogs spot it moving at a fast rate of knots and as soon as it flashes past the starting gate a lever is tripped and they are all free to chase the blur that is moving so quickly away to their front.
Bunched up muscles and flailing legs.
Slavering at the mouth, white gleaming fangs.
Blood shot eyes fixed on the nuts of the dog in front.

Our mob was a bit like that when Jerry opened the gate, and if he had not stepped back a bit sharpish he could have got trampled to death.
When the Jerry Guard opened any gate and there was food in the offing, it always looked like masses of migrating Gnu racing across the veldt in Africa, nothing but a mass of heaving bodies and clouds of dust.
On reaching the truck and settling down we would file past to see the outcome of the verdict.
The bloke who stood near the truck would move the next man forward and if it was a parcel a man he would tick that man鈥檚 name off a script he had pinned to a board, after looking at that man鈥檚 dog tags.
If a parcel was to be shared by two men, the controller would move one man forward and the next man behind him got the parcel so both would have the same number of the parcel checked against their number and name on the list.
The same system worked if it was a parcel between three men.
The senior Brit would get out his note book and after ten to fifteen minutes of high maths and a conference with some of his cronies and a bit looking at one another and a lot of head nodding he would decide it would be one between four.
As this info was relayed to the hungry mob a groan would be heard like an old organ winding down.
After the issue any left over parcels would be put under lock and key till the next lot came in, then the saved ones could be added to them to boost the number and maybe we could get one between two again.
We did on occasion get one parcel each but then the next parcel would be late so it worked itself out, as I sit here typing this I can still vividly remember the comments as the senior Brit announced one parcel per man. A mad cheer would rise from the motley assembly, and for two men to a parcel there was a moderate cheer, but for four to a package one would hear, 鈥淲ell it鈥檚 still better than just the lousy Jerry soup.
And sometimes we would hear from the Guards that a long stretch of railway was under repair.
Perhaps a wagon had jumped the lines and stuffed up the timetable in that particular area.
I would go have a shave and wink at the bloke in the mirror.
Unfortunately not only was the gear to the front immobilised but any Red Cross packages to us were also held up so not wishing to be lynched I kept quiet, that poster I read so often on the station platform informing us that 鈥淧ssst, Feind hurt mit 鈥�
With an umlaut, (two dots) over the U, in English it meant, 鈥淎yup, The Enemy is listening鈥� so I played it safe with both sides, Jerry and his trains and our blokes with their parcels.
But most times it was one package between two men.
The main thing was to keep your eye on the bloke who had half of your parcel.
If you could have seen them you could be forgiven if you thought the two were manacled to each other because where ever the bloke with the parcel went the other bloke was like his shadow until you got back to the barrack room.
There you shared by common agreement.
You could say to him how about you take that and I鈥檒l take this.
But if you could not agree or both wanted the same thing then you would roll a dice and the highest number took his choice,
A tin of corned beef or a big tin of pilchards you could not half because it could go bad so you made an agreement to open it when you both wanted to use it at the same time, and so too with other things and it worked pretty good.
The only gripe I had was sometimes when you got a tin of corned beef the key to open it was missing or the metal tab where the key fitted to wind it open broke off. And since we had no knives it was impossible to open a tin of corned beef with a spoon so you had to swap 1 cigarette to borrow a key, that is if some one had a key.
Of course there is always a smart ass who comes up with 鈥淎h cin oppen yer bully fer yer!鈥� and another will ask 鈥淥h and how pray, may I ask?.
Dum Dum answers 鈥淵er well it鈥檚 too easy, all yu do is hold the spoon between yu hands and work it back and forrards an鈥� the handle will snap off due to metal fatigue from the spoon bit, then when we go to the concrete pool we just rub it up an鈥� dahn on the concrete till it gets a sharp edge on it, then yu cin cut oppen yer bully tin.
And another voice simpered 鈥淭hen what yu gonna eat yo鈥� soup wi鈥欌�� and from the bed area a tired voice drawls 鈥溾�檈 can aways stick 鈥榠s d--k in it and suck it up like an effilant鈥� (elephant) and someone else, having noticed our mate when in the showers, suggested 鈥淒on鈥檛 yo mean like a bleed鈥檔鈥� mosquito?鈥�
Sometimes a parcel would have something different in it like a tin of cocoa or Horlicks or a tin of Benger鈥檚 food. Benger鈥檚 food is not unlike dried milk it can be used to make a milk shake or can be added to food like a sauce. Mixed in with a custard, there were lots of different ways it could be eaten, I think it鈥檚 main advantage was it was ideal for people with tummy troubles and since it was enriched with vitamins and minerals to enable the sick cope better with their malady.
As soon as everyone got back to the barracks the questions would fly 鈥淲hat lucky b---d got a tin of coffee then.
And some one or perhaps two would chortle, 鈥淥w abaht that then鈥� and holding a tin of coffee on high for all to see they would grin at every one like they had just dug up the Hope diamond.
鈥淟ucky back stud" some one would mutter, but then the bloke had to find somewhere to hide it, because you just don鈥檛 drink gold.
And I sometimes muse today about during WW 2 how Hitler flooded the market with funny money. How he went to all that trouble setting up people to make all the different plates and getting the printing organised and so on, and right under his very nose there we were sitting with the equivalent of D.Marks5000 in one parcel.
Coffee in England during ww2 could have cost about two bob a tin but in Germany real coffee was as scarce as rocking horse s--t and if you had a tin you were indeed a very lucky man.
Of course it was not planned but it just had to happen.
The first time we got a parcel someone took the tin of coffee to work and at midday when he made a brew the breeze took the aroma (a bit like the Bisto kids) over the railway line and past this factory.
And if you have ever seen some of the zombie films where a gorgeous blonde is tied to a tree then someone rings the dinner bell at sunset and all the zombies rise out of the ground flashing fangs and making hungry noises.
Well this scene was a bit like that in that one wiff and everyone downed tools, even those in the toilets, and with noses reaching for the scent of coffee like a bull elephant鈥檚 trunk trying to detect a cow elephant in heat they stumbled over each other to get to the source, and it was not long before the owner of the coffee realised the potential in one tin of unopened coffee.
Perhaps what the reader does not realise is the fact that in WW2 in Germany the nearest one could get to a drink of coffee was roasted ground acorns.
Personally I would have preferred water from the local duck pond.
It is not surprising when our mate made this coffee brew everyone who got a wiff of it was under a spell so to speak.
It was not long before the price of a unopened tin of English coffee sky rocketed, and if some fortunate joker got a parcel with a tin of coffee in the contents it was like winning lotto.
Needless to say one didn鈥檛 leave it lying around for all and sundry to peruse. It would have been like Barklay鈥檚 bank leaving a gleaming gold bar in the middle of the street teeming with out of work de-mobbed soldiers.
It would not have surprised me if someone had walked past me in those days with a twig between his hands dowsing for a bed whose owner had been fortunate enough to get a tin of coffee in his parcel When you are a POW you suddenly become Jack of all trades just to keep abreast of the times.
With four tins of coffee the world is your oyster to coin a phrase.
I often wondered how many tins would have persuaded some joker in the black market to knock off Hitler
I think word got back to England that accidentally here was a secret weapon that could corrupt the German people because a lot of flag waving had died down a bit and people were beginning to see that Germany was not going to get all her own way after all. Also the Germans were beginning to remember what their Dads had said in 1918, 鈥淲hen the Tommy LOOKS like he is asleep THAT鈥橲 when he is the most dangerous.鈥�
And more parcels seemed to have coffee in them all of a sudden.
Some times if the Guards were a bit slack or they had been bribed a bloke would take out a tin of coffee and blokes on the work party came back into the camp with a loaf of bread tucked under their jackets and if there were ten men on that work party then ten loaves of rye bread wasn鈥檛 a bad swap for a little tin of coffee.
And the price kept going up as some of the Gestapo now were taking an interest because there was a profit to be made, like I said before all this was undermining the German war effort.
We would use a special place as a post box sometimes.
One ideal place was the Gents toilet in the water cistern and another was a fire bucket full of sand on the platform.
But this way had its drawbacks in that some times the tin would be taken and you would not see it or the bloke again.
But I think that was due to either the bloke got wind someone was watching him or he decided after the first time it was too risky, after all who was stupid enough to kill a goose that laid golden eggs.
Most German blokes who smoked pipes had a little tin in their pocket and in it was a pathetic collection of dried daisy flower heads and these would be crammed into the bowl of a wooden pipe and with a grimace the owner would light up.
Our blokes would take pity and dragging out a tin of Digger Flake with a nudge nudge wink wink to their mates, they would ask the bloke for his pipe and knocking out the daisy heads and fill it with flake then hand it back motioning the owner to light up and enjoy.
With the pipe now firmly clenched in his mouth the Jerry would light up and the first time he puffed and inhaled he had to sit down because it made him so giddy.
鈥淔arfluchter noch mal, was is das?鈥� ( bloody hell what is that, or the equivalent). But a lot of these little niceties sometimes paid off later if you wanted a favour.
Chocolate brings back happy memories, the Bosh had chocolate but against English chocolate it was no contest.
Rowntree and Cadbury鈥檚 should have got a medal because with a bar of either you could bribe some of the Guards to do hand stands while you held his rifle.
So in hind sight the parcel to the Brits did as much in undermining the German system as secret agents did because lets face it you had only to pick the wrong bloke to bribe and that was your lot.
So one had to step clever so to speak by knowing who you were dealing with or the next step could be your last. Most blokes made sure they had something on the bloke they were dealing with as insurance so to speak.
One day a car pulled in to the camp and two very dapper gents got out and went into the Camp Commandants office and our grape vine was such that we knew the moment the meeting was over and what we suspected came true,
To quote one of our blokes, 鈥淭here y鈥檃re Dicko, yu owe me ten fags. I knew the Krauts wouldn鈥檛 issue new blankets just like that, an鈥� ahl tell yu what, I bet yu another ten they is gorn afore they two Swiss blokes is aht the camp.
So we watched them come out of the Camp Commandants Office and the Commandant was all smiles and stepping back to allow the two Swiss Gents go first, and the Swiss Gents hanging back with a, 鈥淣ein, bittershone, weitermachen鈥� (No! please, after you鈥� and one of our blokes watching all the polite gestures smirked, 鈥淚s this goin鈥� ter be an inspection or a frigg鈥檔鈥� barn dance?
German manners being what they are the Commandant won the day, so led by the Swiss delegation this mob descended on our Barracks, behind these three fetching up the rear came the German Feld Wabel (Sergeant) and two posterns, (Guards)
This party came strolling to our living quarters as if they were visiting the local zoo, mind you looking at some of our blokes I suppose that remark is not so far off target.
Anyway on entering the first hut one of the Swiss gents with pin striped trousers and a crease you could slice ham with, complete with elegant spats over highly polished shoes and shiny brief case tucked under the arm asked one of our lads, 鈥淎re they treating you well鈥� and we nodded and smiled politely, and glancing left and right at one another we interpreted the silly grin on the face of each of our blokes as, 鈥淲hat a f---n鈥� stupid question, we also noticed the grim face of the German Sergeant and woe betide anyone who says something out of line.
The Swiss Red Cross excelled in another direction in that they would push until Jerry repatriated some of our blokes back to their homeland because of mental illness due to action at the front.
To see some of these blokes would make you weep, sometimes today you might see a bloke selling poppies at the yearly parade on the 11th of Nov, all smiles and a vacant look and next time when you see a bloke like that you may notice there is some one not too far away from him keeping an eye on him or guiding him to stop him wandering on to the road where there is traffic.
But a lot of young people today don鈥檛 even know about let alone see some of the old blokes who have to be fed because the can鈥檛 even hold a spoon steady now.
When a heavy truck goes by they cringe, weep and whisper 鈥淪tuka鈥� (dive bomber) walk down the street and someone kick starts a motor bike and the bloke is on the floor trembling and ashen faced and weeping.
But like I said before the Red Cross did and still do a sterling job and they can call at my house any time.

Tom Barker 2003 1st A and SH

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