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Great Writing - Home > Extended > The Polish Connection - Chapter 13
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Extended Work
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| The Polish Connection - Chapter 13 | |
| By jean.day | ||||||
| 09 October 2006 | ||||||
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Credit to Paul Cohn-Portheim whose book, a chapter of which is on the internet, Time Stood Still, details what happened at the Isle of Man internment camp. January 1916 “Peter Boutch, Internee Camp, Isle of Man Dear Peter, Is this the right way to write to you? John has had Christmas leave at home and it was wonderful to have him here with us. He took immediately to your little Beth, and she to him. We had lovely walks, much good food and a generally relaxed and happy week. How was your Christmas? What sort of life do you have in your camp? John has given us his blessing in terms of writing letters, so I am going to post this from home, and you can address you replies to me here. He feels it is far better to be above board and not worried about any stigma than to try to do it surreptitiously, although Father McSweeney seemed unworried by the reason I gave him for my last letter from the Isle of Man. The next time I write, I will enclose a picture from Beth, who grows in height and beauty day by day, and speaks very English sounding English now. You will be very proud of her. She has a set of friends she plays with, and soon we will be talking about her starting school. As you know, Catholic children go to St. Mary’s School in Marple Bridge, but there have been so many children here due to the Belgian refugee situation that they have had to rent a room at the Congregational Church Hall to accommodate them all. I had wondered about having her go to Mellor School so she could have Rebecca with her, but thought both you and she would prefer it if she had a Catholic education. I am sure that would be what her mother would have wanted for her. And as I say, she already knows several children of her age who will be going there when she goes, so she will not feel it strange. Love from us all, Barbara” It was an anxious next few weeks but eventually a letter did come from the Isle of Man. I could tell that the postman who delivered it was very curious about it, so when he said, “I see you have a letter from the Isle of Man. I didn’t know you knew anyone there. Have you been there to visit?” I said, “Thank you. My husband has asked me to write to a friend of his who is in the internment camp there.” And having said this, I knew the information would get around the village in no time. But how nice to have things in the open rather than having to continue with lies and sneaking around. And there is no need for anyone to know that it is Beth’s father we are communicating with. I opened the letter with trembling hands. “Dear Barbara, Rebecca and my own dear Beth, How wonderful to receive a letter from you and to know that we can communicate freely from now on. We are not only allowed letters here, we are encouraged to write them and are allowed to write twice a week one page for each. I have made a good friend who is very literate and as my written English is not good, I have asked him help me to write my letters. They will be my thoughts, but he will help me put them down on paper. As he has no one of his own to write to, he will sometimes write his two pages to you, and help with my two pages to you as well. We are not allowed to write anything very specific about the war. The letters have to go through censors, as does anything that you send here, so if you see words blacked out, you will know why. The letter you sent to me arrived all right. I am registered as Peter Boutch, as I felt that was the best to do in order for you to contact me. We are in Camp 2 of Knockloe Camp, near Peel, which is on the West side of the Isle of Man, quite near the sea. It is best that you address me here, although the main headquarters is in Douglas, so they knew to send it on here. The site has 22 acres and is divided into four camps with about 1,000 men in each section of the camp. We are Camp Two. Our huts are wooden and each holds 50 men. I miss you all and think of you each day. I will greatly look forward to more letters from you and particularly would like a picture from Beth. Love Peter” “Dear Barbara, etc. This is Paul writing now with my own piece of paper. I am quite pleased to be sharing you with Peter, and as I enjoy writing, you will perhaps soon feel you know more about me than you have any interest in. We are interned at Knockaloe, which is the name of a little moorland farmhouse near Peel, and enclosing the little stone house on every side, they have built a vast wooden town. The population is over 30,000 at the moment and it is growing all the time. There are no women or children, no houses, nothing but a haze of smoke by day and a blaze of electric light at night time showing where our black huts are in which we eat and sleep together. Outside, the fences are of barbed wire and there are pacing sentries. The camp is pitched on the eastern slopes of a range of hills, which on their western side run steeply down to the Irish Sea. The summit of the hill cuts off the camp from sight of the sea, though from a few of the enclosures we can catch a glimpse of Peel Harbour, almost two miles to the north. On the landward side there was a wide prospect away to Greeba Hill beyond St. John’s. The most we see of other people are the tourists from Douglas come in their busses to “see the Germans” behind their bars, as one might go to the Zoo. Someone described our camp as being like a glorified chicken run. The huts look like hen-houses, but the aimless wandering of the men round and round the compounds, in dust or in mud, according to the weather, brought to mind the scratchings of cooped chickens in their already well-scratched-over soil. Some of the men have bought their way into a better camp in Douglas, and some of them are released to work in the countryside, and sometimes get to live with families. So far we are in the category of the chicken scratchers. But we are well fed, we are fairly warm, and we are safe. Sincerely Paul" And we also had a letter from John, now safely back in Cyprus. “My dear ones, I arrived safe and sound last week. The food here seems very much the worse, but I expect it is only because I am contrasting with the lovely banquets you prepared for me at home. We had a death this last week. Private Cecil Francis Lanning from the Royal Fusilliers from London died on the 18th of January. He met with an accident. I can’t give you the details. He will be buried in the British Army section of the Limmasol graveyard. There are graves here dating back to the 1700’s, and it is interesting to know that the British had a presence here in the time of the crusader Richard the Lionheart who was in charge of Kolassi Castle here at that time. I am orderly officer today which is rather a bind as it means being in uniform all day but someone broke into the NAFFI and stole several thousand cigarettes so we had the special investigation branch of the military police down today taking finger prints etc. I have also been taking part in an audit board during the last week so I know a lot more about accounts now. Tomorrow I start a Court of Inquiry into a fire which occurred in the unit a few weeks ago. This will entail taking statements from witnesses, etc. I suppose, and trying to reach a conclusion. All rather trying as it is over and above normal work which takes a lot of the day in any case. I hope you have recovered as well from Christmas and are back at your normal lives. Did you get anywhere with your letter to Beth’s father? Love John”
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