Len was 19 at the outbreak of the Second World War, he was already part of the Territorial Army, and consequently he was mobilized into the Regular Army 2 days before the outbreak of the War.

Len was a lance-bombardier in the ill-fated 125 Anti-Tank Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery, raised in Sunderland. On Feb 5th 1942, the troopship was bombed and set on fire. The troops were encouraged to swim towards Singapore at least 12 miles away. Len couldn’t swim yet he managed to stay afloat for a few hours, before a small boat picked him up. He arrived in Singapore in his shirtsleeves, clutching his pay book.

The Japanese had already begun to invade Singapore. The troops were overwhelmed and were ordered to surrender.

‘We were in that position waiting for their tanks to come down, they never came, except after about 10 days we saw General Percivel, in his car, and other cars, with white flags going up the road, and the rumor went round, we were going to capitulate. I saw a Brigadier; normally you don’t go up to Brigadiers and say, ‘Good morning,’ to them. But I just wanted to find out, I said, ‘Excuse me Sir, I would like to find out what was going on.’

He looked at me and said, ‘Bombardier I wish I bloody well knew!’

‘Then the orders came, to stop firing, meanwhile we lost men; quite a few of our men were missing, later we learned that they had been killed. Then the Jap’s appeared coming down the road, tanks they had; hundreds of them marching down the road, and when I looked at them, I thought; to think that we are capitulating to this mob, they looked anything but smart.‘

Len’s fight for survival was just about to begin.

They were given orders to go to Changi, every Prisoner converged on Changi.

‘I didn’t see the jail at first; I was put into concrete barracks, then moved to the balcony for the wounded and then out under the palm trees. We were there 2-3 weeks and then we were moved back to Singapore and quite a few of our regiment marched back to a place called River Belly Road.’

Len worked on the infamous Burma railway, and the even more infamous Mergui Road, hacked by hand out of jungle and rockface, yard by painful yard.

‘Our first thoughts were about how to survive, and the food was terrible.
The main diet was rice and gypo; boiled water to which anything was added.’

Len made his survival more bearable by crafting a guitar. He spotted an old wooden crate outside the Japanese cookhouse, and secretly spirited it away one night and fashioned a crude guitar. Using telegraph wires, he recreated strings. The key from a bully beef tin was used to dig out holes for tuning pegs. Len had only one problem; he didn’t know how to play!

His expertise was on the banjo (which he had carried with him everywhere until it went down with all his other belongings when the Empress of Asia troopship sank). A fellow prisoner taught him chords, and Len took it from there. Len would entertain his comrades, weary though they were after each day’s exhausting work, they played and sang and kept up morale.

‘For dinner there’s rice, tea and gypo, for supper rice, gypo and tea and unless a miracle happens I know what my breakfast will be. Bring back, bring back, an appetite bring back to me, to me, bring back, bring back an appetite to me.

Last night as I lay on my pillow, that was a laugh you put your head on your boot, so they wouldn’t get pinched. I dreamt of a gooseberry tart (and all the lads said, ‘ohhh stop it!’)

To follow roast sirloin and Yorkshire, they started throwing things then, but I woke up before I could star!‘ (Sang to the tune of bring back my bonny to me).