Daily Mirror - 17.08.2019

SATURDAY 17.08.2019 DAILY MIRROR^39

DM1ST

and all the trimmings. All my love.

Yours forever. Bill. To John. A little

message to say be good to your

mammie always and look after her until

I come home. Love from your Dad.”

Back in Leeds, that letter brought an

end to years of suspense and heartache

for my mother – the agony of not

knowing whether Dad was alive.

Every bedtime Mum used to sing to

me You Are My Sunshine – and we

would imagine Dad singing it along

with us somewhere in the jungle.

Dad wrote of his homecoming: “It

was a weekend I shall never forget. I

had arrived back in Liverpool. There

was a dock strike, but the dockers came

in to get us safely tied up at the quay.

“Just before lunch we were allowed

to disembark and taken to an Army

camp. It was about eleven o’clock at

night before we were seen by doctors,

they were mostly interested in getting

the POWs away as soon as possible.”

T

his was in spite of the fact that

Dad had suffered from malaria,

beriberi, dysentery, diarrhoea

and ulcers. He went on: “I

weighed five and a half stones.

“One of the doctors gave me a chit so

I could get six eggs (one week only) to

build me up! We arrived at Leeds City

station about 12.30pm and there at the

end of the platform was Marie and John

and most of my relations. John came to

me as if I had been away overnight.

“It was as I hoped it would be. I had

heard many dads had been rejected by

their children when they had been

away for so long. There was much

hugging, laughing and tears, etc, but

John was not going to let me go again.

“When we got to the house Marie

gave me the key to open the door. John

wanted to see what I had brought with

me in my bag. I had packed as many

things as I could afford; mostly sweets,

chocolates, and a bunch of bananas.

“John had not seen a banana before

so we broke one off and he tried to eat

it with the skin on. We all laughed and

showed him how to take the skin off

and eat it; he really enjoyed the taste.

“The next morning Marie was up

early to prepare the breakfast so John

came into our bed as a special treat.

“It seemed like heaven after being in

hell all that time.”

■ From Headlines and Hedgerows: A

Memoir by John Craven, published by

Michael Joseph at £20. ©John Craven

2019. penguinrandomhouse.co.uk
      [email protected]
      @DailyMirror

Dad survived being a

ilway.. I was five when

he could barely lift me

DM1ST

MBERS JOYFUL REUNION

swigs he was out cold

and the surgeon got to

work successfully.

PoWs in the camp

had to constantly repair

the bridge over the River

Kwai after it had been

targeted by Allied

bombing. The guards used to yell

“Speedo! Speedo!” when orders went

out to up the pace, a word which, years

later, my dad would call out to me with

some irony if I was dallying!

My dad told me they were not

allowed to move from their positions

on the bridge until the Japanese gave

the order, putting them at real risk of

being killed by the RAF.

He was in Longshi in Burma on the

completed, he spent nearly

two years in Tamakan, a

so-called “hospital camp”,

although it had no medical

supplies or facilities. Not

the best place to have

appendicitis, which Dad

did. It threatened to turn

into peritonitis and hasten his end.

Fortunately, one of his fellow pris-

oners was a Harley Street surgeon and,

despite the lack of any of the equip-

ment, he decided to operate.

Amongst his crude instruments were

knives made from sharpened bamboo

and for an anaesthetic/antiseptic the

surgeon used saki, a potent rice wine

secretly brewed by the PoWs.

Dad was so weak that after a few

OFF TO WAR

HORROR

LONG WAIT

RIVER KWAI

Willie, Marie and baby John, 1941

Allied troops after they were freed

Marie and John before dad’s return

Alec Guinness, left, in the movie

He decided

to operate

with knives

made from

sharpened

bamboo

JOHN CRAVEN ON DAD’S

APPENDIX SURGERY

very day that I was five when he heard

unofficially from local workers that the

war was over. Then on September 5,

1945, he wrote his first letter home:

“Dear Marie. I hardly know where to

start. It has been a terrible time. I have

been lucky and got through with the

help of God and your love and prayers.

“The latest letter I had from you was

written on July 10, 1944 (with three

photos of John). I can hardly realize I

have a boy as old as he is. When I left

home he was only a baby though I am

glad that he came along and I have

great plans for him when I come home.

“I missed his baby years but I will

make up for that in the future.

“What I want is a really good English

dinner, Yorkshire pudding, roast beef

sands of others suffered

beyond our comprehen-

sion at the hands of their

brutal captors.

I wonder how on earth

my dad – always slightly built and

smallish – managed to survive.

It must have been down to good luck

and a big helping of Yorkshire grit, but

survive he did and lived until he was 80.

He told me only a handful of stories

from his long internment.

Like the night he collapsed by the

side of the railway line after laying

sleepers all day and hit his head on

what he thought was a rock. Daylight

revealed his “pillow” was an unex-

ploded bomb!

After the Death Railway was

AD