July-August 1918

“Dear Barbara, Rebecca and Beth,

It is full summer, but surprisingly the nights are still quite cold and the guards who are outside all night have to wear jackets to keep warm. The sun is out most of the day and it gets very hot indeed.

There is a lot to do at present as people keep cutting down my telegraph poles and cutting the wires. All rather trying. If I catch anyone doing it I shall shoot him first and then start asking questions. On one occasion someone cut down a pole and left a large tin covering the top of the stump. The lineman who found it though it might be a bomb, so he called out the bomb disposal team who blew it up. Of course it wasn’t a bomb but the explosion then caused by blowing up the tin blew down some more cables and caused more trouble than all the Greeks put together. Next time I shall just throw a stone and see what happens.

Love
John”

“Dear Barbara, Rebecca and my little Beth,

You asked to tell me more about the products we make here to benefit others in our situation. Large numbers of boots and shoes, and some hosiery, are made here at Knockaloe for distribution through St. Stephen’s House amongst our women and children. Many of us have families living nearby, who aren’t interned of course, but are very much in need of help. Bed-tables, and leg-rests, and other articles are made for the camp hospitals. Our tailors make suits of clothes, and boots for the use of our men when we finally leave camp. For the military hospital camps, crutches and walking sticks with rubber tips are produced, and also a very large stock of tooth-brushes made with the help of ingenious little machines devised by an engineer who was in charge of the industrial work in one of the camps.

But beyond all this work it is the aim of the Committee (on which I am the camp representative) to try and set on foot some form of production for the benefit of devastated areas of Europe. We were finally able to secure a workshop and material and set men to work in making furniture for the new homes of dispossessed French peasants. A generous friend of prisoners provided the necessary capital; a Birmingham Friend lent some wood-working machinery; and our industrial adviser prepared special designs of folding articles for convenience of transport. We’re also in the middle of building some dozens of large dressers and smaller buffet-cupboards, and about a hundred and fifty strong kitchen tables.

Camp Exhibitions are held from time to time and bring together some wonderful examples of clever and patient work. The occupations of the workshops cover a much wider range than what we have done in our camp. There are studios for the artists, and corners for jewellers, workers in metal, leather, raffia, and other materials. In one compound there is a book-binders’ shop; in another a lithographic or steel engraving press; and in another a room full of knitting machines, chiefly busy in making socks for the prisoners, either of new wool, or from the unravelled material of the old undarnables. More on the next page in the next letter.

Love
Peter”

“Dear Barbara, Rebecca and Beth,

Large quantities of ornamented tablecloths and other woven stuffs are made on handlooms built and worked at Knockaloe. It was not possible to introduce an instructor for this or other work into the camp, but permission was obtained for a Swedish lady to teach two prisoners in our own hut, and these men were then able to instruct other would-be weavers inside the wire. One of the looms that was made was used for instructional purposes in a successful textile school in Camp I.

I have heard also there is at the camp at Feltham, Middlesex, where there are a concentrated number of so-called ‘friendly aliens,’ consisting of Poles, Alsatians, Danes and others, both civil and military prisoners. At this camp a supporter of the Committee with technical knowledge was allowed to instruct some of the men in the making and use of carpet looms and a number of pile rugs of striking colour and design are being produced there.

Another change has come upon us. Instead of being jeered at as Huns, now there are Englishmen, representing many others, coming into the camp in pure friendship. It shows us that the spirit of hatred and the fever of war do not possess the whole land. It is the link, so much needed, with the common feelings of humanity and sympathy that are still ruling in simple hearts all over the world. To these visitors we can speak freely of our bitterness, loneliness or despair, and be assured of understanding and the chance of help. The visitors’ aim is, by one means or another, to try to help cheerfulness to break through. This means, wherever possible, a direct appeal to the essential manhood and the religious depths of the troubled friend. Another task was that of bringing some measure of comfort and strength to the sick or dying men.

One effect has been to awake in many prisoners an interest in the Society of Friends, for many of the representatives of St. Stephen’s House belonged to that body. Quaker literature has been asked for and supplied to the camp libraries. In particular a lecture on the meaning of Quakerism, was printed in English and in German and is widely distributed in many of the camps. A group of men have begun to meet together in a deserted corner of one of our buildings after the manner of Friends. Requests are received from men to be admitted to membership of the Society.

Love from Peter”