I was raised in a POW camp and this is what I remember most

Jenny Martin’s earliest memory is that of a fence. A huge one, which towered over her small frame as armed guards walked behind her.

‘It is a very simple memory,’ Jenny, now 82, tells Metro. ‘I was two-years-old and it was enormously high. I had no idea of the world behind it.’

Jenny had been born in Changi, a prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Singapore. There, she and her mother, Daphne, stayed in a wooden hut and were limited to just one pound of rice per month.

‘I thought it was normal to be hungry,’ Jenny recalls. ‘It was worse for the adults as they were used to a far better lifestyle. But I didn’t know any different.’

The fall of Singapore during the Second World War had marked one of the most harrowing events in British military history. In the space of just a few weeks, thousands were herded up and incarcerated in prisoner of war camps across the Far East.

They included Daphne Davidson, a Singapore-born secretary for the country’s Civil service, and James Davidson, an electrical engineer originally from Inverness. When the radio crackled with warnings of war, Daphne was tasked with burning sensitive files the Singapore Government did not wish the Japanese to see. 

When Singapore was invaded on February 15, 1942, James was sent to work on a remote Japanese island while pregnant Daphne was taken to Changi POW camp. Men, women and children sang Vera Lynn’s ‘There will always be an England’ as they were marched through the gates. 

Five months later, on July 31, Jenny was born, when Daphne had been briefly allowed to leave the war camp to give birth in a hospital. Two weeks later, mother and baby were sent back to Changi where Jenny spent her early years being cared for by Daphne and her fellow POWs.

‘When I was two we moved from Changi to Sime Road, where I stayed in Block E with around 1,000 women crammed in,’ explains Jenny. ‘Guards would walk around to make sure everything was order and I perhaps picked up some feelings of fear the women felt. These men seemed huge to me and were very frightening with their guns.

‘By then I was beginning to toddle around. Everyone wanted to pick me up and give me a cuddle, sing me a nursery rhyme or teach me my ABCs. I think the women were quite glad to have a baby as a distraction.’

Jenny saw her father just once during her time held prisoner. James was allowed to visit his wife and daughter at Changi at Easter time in 1943, when Jenny was about eight months old. He brought with him a small wooden rattle which is now on display in London.

Not knowing if they would meet again, Daphne gave her husband her precious only photograph of herself and Jenny. He folded it and put it in his breast pocket until the end of the war. 

Jenny’s most vivid memory from the Sime Road camp is the day freedom came calling. On July 31, 1945 – two weeks after her third birthday – the earth began to shake and a low rumble passed through the rows of huts. 

Everyone got out their bunks and dashed outside to see what was happening,’ she remembers. ‘Suddenly, these huge planes flew low over us. The adults knew they were RAF because of the markings. 

‘That’s when we found out we would be free. The planes dropped hundreds of leaflets which said ‘The war has ended, Japan has surrendered, we are coming for you very soon!’ The women were saying “thank god” to each other. That was the first time I learned the name of God. I’ve been very devoted to him ever since.

‘I’ll always remember that day.’

Soon, trucks had arrived with British soldiers at the wheel, and the POWs were temporarily taken to Singapore’s famous Raffles Hotel, which had been reclaimed in 1945 during Operation Tiderace by the British Navy. There, they met with representatives from the Red Cross who reunited Daphne and Jenny with James.

He was thin after months being forced to work on the infamous Burma Railway – nicknamed ‘the Death Railway’ due to the number of fatalities during construction – but alive. The weary family boarded the ‘Monowai’ ship and set sail for Liverpool.

‘On the way back we pulled into Port Said,’ Jenny says. ‘The Red Cross had organised a huge building – an aircraft hangar – filled with trestle tables with clothes for every age and size. After three and half years in jail we had very few things left to wear, and they were all tropical clothes like summer dresses – mostly worn out. We got warm winter clothes to wear.’

When the family arrived in Liverpool, Jenny’s parents brought her to Edinburgh to live with her aunt Rena for the winter months, before making the island of Jersey their new home. 

After attending high school, Jenny applied to study mathematics at the University of Edinburgh and went on to become a teacher. 

It wasn’t until she met her second husband, a historian called Niall, that Jenny decided to open up about her experience in Singapore.

‘I always hesitated to tell people about my internee days,’ she admits. ‘I found it embarrassing. They might say something like “oh, that must have been awful!” But it wasn’t awful for me as I was born into it. That life was all I ever knew. 

‘If people asked me where I came from, I’d say Edinburgh. If they pressed, I would say I was born in Singapore and came over as a child. But Niall understood, he helped me talk about it.’

During a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire in the early 90s, Jenny stumbled upon a leaflet for The Children (& Families) of the Far East Prisoners of War (COFEPOW). The charity was founded by Carol Cooper, whose father L/Cp William Smith died on Burma’s ‘Death Railway’ – in 1943. Jenny attended meetings, organised events in Scotland and met with others who had been brought up in POW camps.

‘That was a very healing experience,’ Jenny reflects. ‘I think I’m a resilient person now, I’m certainly not shy about what happened. I don’t mind sharing my story.’

For a long time, Jenny had mixed feelings about her escape from the POW camp, knowing Japan’s surrender only came after atomic bombs wiped out 135,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But there was one special event that helped her find peace.

She explains: ‘In the 90s, I was invited to dinner by my husband Niall’s parents. His father was entertaining a Japanese doctor who was in Edinburgh to take a surgery course. 

‘We had a nice meal in the garden, then the doctor turned to me and said “I’d like to apologise for the experiences you had as a child.” I felt quite embarrassed. I thought for a moment, then said “I would like to apologise for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Then we kind of bowed to each other. That is a really special memory, it made a real difference to me.’

The rattle James Davidson made for Jenny is on display as part of the ‘Caught in Conflict: 75 years of the Geneva Conventions’ free exhibition curated by Mehzebin Adam-Suter. The British Red Cross Museum is located at 44 Moorfields, London, EC2Y 9AL. You can book a private tour by emailing museum@redcross.org.uk. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kirsten.Robertson@metro.co.uk 

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