25 July 1942

Received a wonderful parcel from Ineke yesterday, my birthday, containing two pillow cases, writing pad and pencils, the pocket Bible and the pocket Testament which Dad carried with him in the last war, playing cards, needle, thread and wool, a tin of home made Swiss milk toffee, condensed milk, cigarettes and cigarette papers.  I feel like a millionaire.  The pad and pencils are a godsend.  Out 5.30 to 6.15.  The tough guys are on duty, W and W, Looney, Pokerface etc.

Yesterday, I celebrated my 39th birthday in a prison cell.  And, just half an hour ago, still in the cell, I celebrated the first day of my fortieth year by sitting down on a plateful of soft boiled rice!  My cell is 2.5 x 1.5 meters (8 feet x 5 feet) and the furnishing is scanty.  A small oblong table, a three legged stool, a bed which folds up against the wall when not in use, and a small cupboard hanging on the wall above the bed  is the inventory, if one excepts the very respectable WC pot with a zinc basin above it in the corner apposite bed and door.  In removing anything from the cupboard, therefore – and I had just taken my writing pad from under the plate of rice – there are only the table and chair to put it on.  The table being otherwise engaged at the moment, I placed the plate of rice on the stool, took out the pad, closed the cupboard, turned round and sat down.  The immediate sensation was a surprising one – a soft yielding combined with a concave resistance, which at last suddenly gave way with a mild crack as the plate broke under me in three pieces.  Realisation came with a crack, but even then a moment’s cogitation was necessary to determine how the act of rising could be accomplished with a minimum of further disaster.  Taking off my shorts was a delicate operation as was the messy job of scraping the seat with my spoon.  Soft boiled rice also all over the stool and floor – but all is cleaned up now and order restored, my shorts hanging on the window with the damaged portion exposed to the evening breeze.  No supper tonight, though.

But to get back to this prison business.  The nearest I have ever been to prison in my life before was away back in 1919.  I had given up a promising position in the Aberdeen Public Library (13/6 per week which equates to, in today’s money, 67.5 pence or 94 US cents, with the prospect of becoming perhaps a junior librarian in 20 years’ time) to join with a travelling concert party, The Balmorals, which was just commencing a winter tour of practically every town and village from Aberdeen West and Northwards.  I joined as  vocalist, at fifteen and a half years of age, and was provided with a second hand dinner suite (30/- from one or other old clothes’ store) with a salary of 30/- per week all found or, again in today’s money, £1.50 or just over US$2.  The Balmorals party was run by Gus Stratton and James Montague (Monty) and consisted of Stratton and his wife and child, Monty, a young/old lady, whose name I forget as pianist and myself.  As I have said, I joined the party as vocalist but my duties as a member of The Balmorals were manifold, not only during the performance but also during the rest of my waking hours as no doubt with a view to economy, no extra help was engaged at any point.  We played only one night in each place and travelled, sometimes by rail or car and sometimes even on shanks’ mare if the distance was not too great, from point to point.  Monty’s son, Jimmie (poor lad) was our advance agent and his duties were to precede us by about a week to ten days, on a bicycle, pasting bills advertising the show wherever possible in, and in the vicinity of, the villages to be visited, hiring a hall for the performance and arranging for the hire of a piano if there was none in the hall.  When the party arrived the first thing to be done was the distribution of handbills along the streets and outside the schools and the arranging of the seating accommodation and placing of the piano by the male members, while the ladies occupied themselves in setting things to rights ‘back stage’.  I also sat at the receipt of customs, in the ticket box, when the doors opened and as soon as everybody was inside, I would close the door and dash round to the back of the stage to be ready for the ‘come on’ with the others.  The program lasted about 2.5 hours altogether, commencing usually at 8pm with an interval of 15 minutes.  During the first half the ‘sit around’ method was adopted as in a Pierrot show on the sands with all members of the party seated in a half circle on the stage, Gus and Monty acting as ‘corner men’, and each member rising and coming forward to do his or her turn in succession.  I usually sang a couple of songs, Mrs Stratton and Gus a semi humorous duet or two, Thelma Stratton sang and danced, while Monty and Gus kept the patter and announcements going from their respective corners.  The second half was another pair of shoes, consisting of individual turns and finishing up with a hilarious sketch.  The items, as billed, included ‘Thelma the Wonder Child’, ‘The Strattons, Scotch Character Duo’, ‘Professor Montague, Conjurer and Illusionist’ (Monty), ‘Maximillian Sylvester, Ventriloquist’ (Monty again) and ‘Donald Munro’ (myself) tenor vocalist.

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A note by Pat O’Neill about ‘The Concert Party’:

The concert party was usually composed of a group of singers, much like a small choir who performed popular songs as well as art songs. The concert party format was very popular at the time and still exists in various areas of the UK.

Although the music hall tradition continues today, during the beginning of 1900, music halls dominated the musical scene and virtually every town and village boasted music hall activities.

A very famous artist called Sir Harry Lauder was to become The World's Most Beloved Musical Humorist.  Follow the link and you will get an insight to not only Sir Harry but also to the idea of a concert party.

Here we go again!

Can it really be 3 months since I posted here?  What has been happening during that time?  Christmas was the biggy with family coming over to enjoy the fruits of my cooking in my old kitchen for the last Christmas before a total refurbishment.  But that is another story!  Various family birthdays; a new addition to our family of a boy to continue our family dynasty (can you hear the chords of Dynasty?) and so life goes on.

I promised to continue my Dad’s manuscript, the one I began transposing here below.  In the posts below he describes how the Japanese came to invade Java, Indonesia and how he and my mother became involved in some years of separate internments.  Now is the time to continue showing you his manuscript in which he describes briefly his experiences in prison as a prisoner of war during WWII.  Although they had hard times I do believe they were a lot more lucky than so many.  At least they came through it with their tale to tell unlike many of their dear friends.

One of the ways my Dad, who was ever resourceful, tried to keep his sanity during the long hours of inactivity was to cast his mind back to his youth to describe instances he could remember.  This actually gives a wonderful insight to life in Aberdeen in the period of 1919 onwards.  Please remember these are my Dad’s words as he wrote them.  There won’t be many, if any, pictures but his graphic way with words allows the reader to use their imagination to create real pictures in their minds as they follow his words.  All his words were written down by hand using any scrap of paper and a pencil that became a very small stump!  He found ways to hide all this but mostly the memories were kept in his mind to be written/typed at a later date.  These will be the words you will be reading.

There may be some foreign  words from the Dutch language since Java was part of the Dutch East Indies and my mother was Dutch herself.  English became very much the ‘indoors’ language or for English friends whilst the majority of the time Dutch was the main language.  Of course, having lived in this part of the world for some time local words from the Malaysian language or Japanese would also infiltrate at times.  Wherever possible I will try to translate!

And so, my friends, expect to find many chapters over a prolonged period of time.  Also, please remember these words are not for copying or publishing in any other format anywhere without the express permission of the author of this blog.  As the sub heading of this blog explains, ‘Many of us have precious thoughts within us and very precious memories. Unless, we explain or write about them they will remain within us and not be shared with the wider world.’  It is for this reason I felt duty bound to share my Dad’s memories to give a better insight to events of the time.  Otherwise, all would have been in vain and lost to the next generation had these memories not been passed down.

I will alert readers to new posts as they are completed but the easiest way of keeping up is to click the follow button, if you haven’t already, and in this way you will be able to keep up to date.

All I have left to say, is please sit back, grab a coffee or something stronger, and drift off to another era.  Do feel free to leave a comment but most of all, I urge you to enjoy the experience!

Thank you!

New visitors!

It was, I think, on Friday, 26 March, in the second week of our return to 'Sunny Corner' that a further development occurred in our private affairs.  I had been going round to the office for a few hours each morning and it was during my absence, when Ena was alone in the house that the following happened.

Ena was washing the floor of the bedroom when she heard a car drive in.  Looking out she saw a Japanese woman and a European man coming towards the door.  A third man, also a European, remained in the car.

As they passed the bedroom window on their way to the door Ena addressed the woman, who, however, ignored her and by the time Ena got to the front room, the two visitors had already entered.

"Saya dari Generale Staf" ( I am from the Jap General Staff) announced the woman in Malay by way of introduction.  "Saya maoe pakai ini roemah". (I want to use this house)

Ena asked where we were supposed to go.  "Oh", was the reply, "You will be interned".  This unwelcome visitor then proceeded to inspect the house going through it as if it belonged to her.  While she was thus engaged the Dutchman (for such he proved to be) in a few remarks confirmed what his companion had already said and offered the information that the woman was Mrs Graven and introduced himself as Niekerk.

After her inspection, Mrs Graven returned to the front room and said to Ena, "I thought this house was bigger.   It is too small for me.  I have nine children."

She suddenly decided, apparently, to be friendly and drew Ena with her in to the rear sitting room closing the folding doors.  Niekerk returned to the car.  Mrs Graven had Ena sit down with her on the settee and started a long story as to how she and her husband and children had been interned by the Dutch.  She said that we were to be interned and advised our having suitcases packed against this, and advised Ena to conceal her rings etc in cakes of soap.  According to her, Ena and I would be interned together.  Although she herself would not now be taking our house, she warned that it would no doubt be occupied in due course by Jap officers.

She then left 'Sunny Corner' and it was not long before we learned that she went straight to the Sparkes' house and commandeered that.  The Sparkes family came to vacate almost immediately but fortunately were able to find accommodation in 'Cress Cottage' next door to their own house.  'Cress Cottage' had been occupied until recently by General Van Oyen, commander of the Air Force, but who had left for Australia shortly before the capitulation.  We did not envy the Sparkes family with the Gravens and their spawn as neighbours during the few weeks that followed.

Now, a word about this unsavoury trio who had thrust their way so unceremoniously into our lives.

Mrs Graven herself was Japanese and had lived, we learned, in Bandoeng for about 30 years.  She was the sister in law of Sakura, who had a long established and well known haberdashery on the Groote Postweg.  Her husband was a white Russian, a drunken sot, at one time reputedly an officer in the Russian Imperial Army.  The man Niekerk, who could only have been a traitor to his country, had at one time been employed in the Volkskreditbank (The People's Credit Bank) a sort of Loans Society but had retired, on money, I suspect, earned by espionage activities, and had built a complex of attractive bungalows some miles up the Lembanweg to the north of Bandoeng, occupying himself one of them with the exotic name of 'Nirvana'.  He also possessed a number of houses in the town itself.

It gave me great satisfaction to meet this individual again in Internment Camp #4, Tjimahi, early in 1944 and to find that he was mere skin and bone and hardly fit to move thanks to the starvation cure imposed on us all by his Nipponese friends.  I learned, too, that his traitorous activities were known to the Dutch authorities and I am satisfied that he will get  his due reward in due course, if he has not already got it.

These three individuals were just part of the scum which the Japanese stirring up had brought to the surface at this time.

At the first opportunity after this visit we informed our good friend, Lt Kagee, of what had transpired and he advised us if anything of the kind happened again to get on the 'phone immediately and let him know.  Before very long we were to be very grateful for this suggestion.

**** to be continued