JAILBIRDS, JAILBREAKERS... AND A GOOD DOG CALLED JUDY

Highlights from a trip I took this week to a superb new exhibition at the UK National Archives

I’ve been writing about prisoners lately.

Last week I was thinking about Charles duke of Orléans, who spent a quarter of a century locked in various castles about England following the battle of Agincourt in 1415, writing love poetry and mournful verses about the pain of incarceration.

This week it was James I of Scotland, who was kidnapped by English pirates in 1406, when he was 11 years old and kept a captive - albeit an honourable one - at the Lancastrian court until he was nearly 30. James got very good at wrestling during his imprisonment and, like Charles, dabbled in poetry.

And not so long ago it was John Oldcastle, the Lollard rebel who caused Henry V no end of trouble when he escaped from the Tower of London having been condemned for heresy in 1413. Oldcastle remained at large until he was recaptured in Wales in 1417, and burned/hanged for his crimes.

So it was rather a good time to be invited to view a new exhibition at the UK National Archives in Kew, titled Great Escapes. The subject of the show is prisoners of war, and although it focuses on the POW experience in the Second World War, I was fascinated to go along and think about how the prisoner’s lot has changed - or not - over the course of the last seven or eight hundred years.

It didn’t disappoint. The National Archives holds vast numbers of records relating to British prisoners overseas - in Japan, Germany and elsewhere - as well as records relating to foreign nationals interned in Britain during the war. They have also borrowed some astonishing artefacts from other institutions, including the Imperial War Museum.

So at the exhibition I read the debriefing notes made detailing Airey Neave’s escape from Colditz in 1942 - and thought that a similar degree of daring and ingenuity must have attended Oldcastle’s bust from the Tower of London.

I alsolooked at a handwritten book of hymns made by Margaret Dryburgh, a woman kept prisoner by the Japanese, who died in captivity shortly before the war in the east ended in 1945. It struck me that the will to write verse to while away - or mentally ‘escape’ - miserable hours spent locked up is also timeless.

And I met a dog called Judy… but more of her later.

Anyway, the headline is: the show is great. Thought provoking, fascinating and moving in its own right, it also speaks to broad historical themes beyond its immediate subject matter. So I would just share a few highlights from it and encourage you to either check it out in person (if you’re in the UK and can travel to Kew), or consider getting hold of the accompanying book, Captives: Prisoners of War and Internees 1939-1945.

Of course, and needless to say, this isn’t very medieval. If your interest in history grinds to a halt with the accession of Henry VIII, then I can only say: normal service will (probably) be resumed next week. But no apologies. I think it’s nice to step outside the era once in a while and poke one’s nose around in other historians’ backyards.

Here’s what caught my eye at the show.

Secret maps for escapees

During the Second World War the secret War Office department known as MI9 was responsible for helping captured Allied service personnel evade capture or escape confinement. Playing cards sent to POW camps in care packages sometimes concealed maps showing escape routes through enemy territory.

Prison food

Mamie Colley was sent to Palembang camp on Sumatra as a civilian internee. She kept a diary of her experiences there, as well as this hand-written recipe book. Some of the recipes were written before she was imprisoned, but she has selected those that can be improvised on the meagre camp rations.

Captivity hymns

Margaret Dryburgh was a nurse and missionary who lived on Singapore at the time that it fell to the Japanese. She was also interned at Palembang, where she organised a women’s choir. She wrote the famous ‘Captives’ Hymn’, which the choir performed every Sunday. Dryburgh was moved to Belalau camp in April 1945, fell ill on the journey and died shortly after arriving there. Her story was adapted in the film Paradise Road in 1997.

Escape from Colditz

In 1942 Airey Neave became the first British officer to escape from Colditz (aka Oflag IV-C); he achieved this remarkable feat at his third attempt, by making a fake German uniform, forging a passport and making his break for freedom via a secret trapdoor during a theatrical production. This is his account of the escape. Neave walked for two weeks to the Swiss border, returned to Britain and was recruited by MI9 to help others escape. He was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979.

Frank and Judy

You can probably read the caption here, but in summary: Frank Williams was imprisoned in Indonesia, where he befriended a pointer called Judy, who helped scare off snakes, scorpions and guards, and scavenged for food. She is the only animal ever to have been awarded official POW status; the medal pictured here is her PDSA Dickin medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross.