Description
Object description
Interesting but unfinished ms memoir (35pp), written in (?) the late 1940s or 1950s, recording how, as a fourteen year old boy, he had been interned with his father in very insanitary conditions in Katong police station for three weeks just after the fall of Singapore in February 1942 before being marched to the men's internment camp in Changi Gaol, and describing his early months with particular reference to the lack of food and overcrowding, the public spirited behaviour of many internees in making the most of the facilities available in the gaol, the range of social, recreational and educational activities to counter boredom, health and hygiene, his meeting with his mother (who was interned in the women's camp) and his attendance at the camp school; together with his ts/ms school reports (1p each), dated April and August 1943, as one of the three students in the Changi men's internment camp school, the ts School Certificate (1p) awarded to him in Sime Road internment camp in August 1945 and the formal University of Cambridge School Certificate (1p) later issued in its place, an undated ms transcript (p2 only) of a testimonial on his behalf written by the Sime Road camp education officer, a printed certificate (1p), dated December 1949, issued by the University of London exempting him from the Matriculation Examination, a pass issued to him in Changi Gaol, his membership card for the Returned British Prisoners of War Association, copy prints of a photograph of him sitting in his hut in Sime Road camp and of a passport photograph of him taken in 1947 and a ts transcript (3pp) of a memoir written in 1985 by his elder sister describing the family's life in Singapore prior to the outbreak of war in the Far East and how she survived the sinking of the ship on which she was evacuated from Singapore on 13 February 1942 and eventually arrived in the United Kingdom in November 1942.
Content description
Interesting but unfinished ms memoir (35pp), written in (?) the late 1940s or 1950s, recording how, as a fourteen year old boy, he had been interned with his father in very insanitary conditions in Katong police station for three weeks just after the fall of Singapore in February 1942 before being marched to the men's internment camp in Changi Gaol, and describing his early months with particular reference to the lack of food and overcrowding, the public spirited behaviour of many internees in making the most of the facilities available in the gaol, the range of social, recreational and educational activities to counter boredom, health and hygiene, his meeting with his mother (who was interned in the women's camp) and his attendance at the camp school; together with his ts/ms school reports (1p each), dated April and August 1943, as one of the three students in the Changi men's internment camp school, the ts School Certificate (1p) awarded to him in Sime Road internment camp in August 1945 and the formal University of Cambridge School Certificate (1p) later issued in its place, an undated ms transcript (p2 only) of a testimonial on his behalf written by the Sime Road camp education officer, a printed certificate (1p), dated December 1949, issued by the University of London exempting him from the Matriculation Examination, a pass issued to him in Changi Gaol, his membership card for the Returned British Prisoners of War Association, copy prints of a photograph of him sitting in his hut in Sime Road camp and of a passport photograph of him taken in 1947 and a ts transcript (3pp) of a memoir written in 1985 by his elder sister describing the family's life in Singapore prior to the outbreak of war in the Far East and how she survived the sinking of the ship on which she was evacuated from Singapore on 13 February 1942 and eventually arrived in the United Kingdom in November 1942.
History note
Cataloguer RWAS
History note
Catalogue date 2005-12