Keeping Busy
Just a usual day in a P.O.W’s life. Life could be very boring if you allowed your mind to stagnate. You can see it all over the camp – fellows who interest themselves in nothing. When you talk with them they have nothing but complaints and moans.
– Bill Smith, diary, 23 Feb 1944 1999/195.14aj
Bill found many ways to fill in the long days of captivity. He would spend time visiting friends and acquaintances in other huts and compounds, cooking, reading when he could (there was a ratio of only 1 book per 20 prisoners), and writing letters and diaries.
See below to read some pages from Bill Smith’s prisoner of war diary:
It was a visit from a friend in another hut which inspired him to take up knitting:
Had a return visit from Jim Simpson the Aussie – he brought his knitting needles with him and sat on my top bunk and worked away at his sock. His needles were made from spokes of a Jerry cycle which he came across when out on a working party and the wool he gets from cast off pullovers and worn out socks. He is endeavouring to “procure” some more needles for me.
– Bill Smith, diary, 31 Jan-5 Feb 1944 1999/195.14aj
After this, Bill took to knitting his own pairs of socks as well as socks for other prisoners, which he would exchange for cigarettes.
Sports were also a highly popular pastime in the prison camp, especially soccer. Many individual huts had their own teams, which they named after English premier league teams (Bill’s was called the “Tottenham Hotspurs”). The ‘cup finals’ held within the camp were events not to be missed, as Bill relates:
To be a spectator at these games makes one completely forget that barbed wire and armed guards with sour faces and loud barking voices surround this small colony of 7-8,000 of all nationalities. The pitch is no grass one of course – only common dirt, but the crowd is a typical cup final assembly. The camp orchestra plays in the middle of the field for approx ½ an hour before the game… Men have been busy from 8am carrying forms from their huts and placing them 3 deep around the field. Such is the method of reservation. Even the Jerry officers come to these big games and I am sure the sprit displayed must make them wonder.
- Bill Smith, diary, 1 March–20 April 1944 1999/195.14aj
Concerts and plays were another popular means of escapism, and the prisoners even managed to construct their own theatre within the camp:
The theatre is or was just an ordinary hut, but by the artistic minded, completely transformed into a modern theatre. The stage and settings are a masterpiece. A Box Office built out of Red X parcel boxes was at the doorway, complete with a uniformed attendant – a R.A.F. uniform with a few extra buttons made of tin. Seats could be booked for 1 cigarette, our chief medium of exchange… The show itself was a great success and of course is running for a season. There were ballets, sketches, quick humour and many cracks on typical subjects. The stage scenery [was] made from sacking dyed various colours and cardboard with figures and scenes painted by no mean artist were as good as many a theatre.
– Bill Smith, diary, 25 Jan 1944 1999/195.14aj
There were also organised lectures and talks given by prisoners on topics such as politics, history, and their respective peacetime occupations:
Apart from our Communist who argues all the time along political lines we have had some real interesting talks. A manager of one of the chain stores in England gave us a lecture on how one was run and let us into a few secrets. A South African has given a series of 3 lectures on the life and customs of the Zulu. He is very good. Then a talk on the prophecies of Nostradamus was given by an Army corporal, in another hut… his guess for the finish of this war is March 1944. I sincerely hope he is correct.
- Bill Smith, diary, 31 Jan-5 Feb 1944 1999/195.14aj
On top of all these activities, Bill was appointed Hut Commander in August 1944, and so became responsible for the welfare of all the men in his barrack block:
The whole day was spent in getting organised in my new job. There is quite a bit to do in the way of office work to say nothing of trying to answer queries and keep 212 men happy.
– Bill Smith, diary, 9 Aug 1944 1999/195.14aj
See below to read the Hut Duty Orders issued by Bill Smith in Stalag IVB, 18 Nov 1944:
Despite these new responsibilities, Bill still found time to plan the house that he and Clare would live in after the war, with the help of fellow prisoner and architecture student Eric Grove. Click Bill's house plansto see his original plan, drafted while in Stalag IVB.
Next section: "Jerry".
