Harold Atcherley features in a forthcoming documentary
called 'Moving Half a Mountain' a moving film about the power of forgiveness. Prisoners
of Japan and their guards recall memories on the infamous Death Railway.
Personal stories told with 70 years perspective.
Thursday, 11 July 2013
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Sir Harold Atcherley, Prisoner of Japan: A Personal War Diary published by Memoirs Publishing
Sir Harold Atcherley, Prisoner of Japan: A Personal War Diary, Memoirs Publishing, Cirencester, 2012, £14.50.
Harold Atcherley records in his diary how he was walking through the camp at Changi one moonlit evening when he came across a body being carried to the morgue. He found himself wondering whether the man had a wife at home. If so, she would know nothing of how he died or what was on his mind. “It is just as well,” he concluded for she would “never understand, as nobody will ever understand, who has not actually experienced life here.” I am sure that is true yet the first-hand stories of POW can help us at least appreciate (if not fully understand) what happened particularly when they are told with Atcherley’s powers of observation and reflection.
Harold Atcherley was on the way to a successful career with the oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell when war broke out. Commissioned as an intelligence officer at the HQ of the 18th British Infantry Division he arrived in Singapore at the end of January 1942. Two weeks later he was a Prisoner of War. He began writing the diary in May 1942 and continued it until he was repatriated from Singapore in September 1945. Besides the first few months of captivity, which he recreates from memory, the only gap is between April and December of 1943 when he was working on the Burma/Thailand Railway. After the war he returned to Royal Dutch Shell and a career in public service. He was knighted in 1977.
Atcherley’s diary focuses on the day-to-day privations and tedium of camp life and on his state of mind throughout it all. But he writes with both perspective and perception. As an officer, perhaps, he was in a better position than many others to know what was going on in the camp even though what passed for knowledge was often little better than rumour. But as the years wore on he maintained a remarkable level of candour and insight about his feelings and emotions. Letters from home, for example, could be a very mixed blessing. The life they described seemed “so petty with all the stupid social conventions and traditions.” To not receive a letter could be dissatisfying and yet to receive one could be even more so.
The diary was a form of self-discipline, of course. Reading was another. It might be Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism one day and Huxley’s Essays of a Biologist the next; it was in fact. But even an intense and protracted reading regimen did not satisfy the need to keep his mind occupied. And so he took up Italian as well.
The early sections of the book dealing with Atcherley’s enlistment, training and voyage to Singapore perhaps give the impression of a privileged, not to say charmed, life. He was an officer with a batman, after all, and the months before embarkation seemed to be a whirl of dances and dinner parties. My father’s experience as a Royal Army Medical Corps orderly was rather different. But Atcherley was clearly troubled by the disparities in treatment between officers and ranks, for which he could see no justification. Indeed, his generous and fair-minded disposition extended to his assessment of the Japanese and his understanding of the challenges facing the world. By March 1943 (and perhaps much earlier) he had concluded that national sovereignty was an outmoded notion and that people needed to be taught that they had responsibilities to mankind, not just to the state in which they happened to have been born. “I have never wanted to fight Germans or Japanese,” he writes. “How can anyone like or dislike a whole nation?”
A surprising question, perhaps, given Atcherley’s POW experience, but that is precisely why he can ask it with such authority. It is an authority that is further enhanced throughout the published diary by Ronald Searle’s drawings. Atcherley and Searle knew each other at Changi and were together through much of their captivity. Searle captured the face of barbarity as few other artists have managed to do. Prisoner of Japan is a fitting testament to two men – and countless others on both sides – who rose above it.
Harold Atcherley records in his diary how he was walking through the camp at Changi one moonlit evening when he came across a body being carried to the morgue. He found himself wondering whether the man had a wife at home. If so, she would know nothing of how he died or what was on his mind. “It is just as well,” he concluded for she would “never understand, as nobody will ever understand, who has not actually experienced life here.” I am sure that is true yet the first-hand stories of POW can help us at least appreciate (if not fully understand) what happened particularly when they are told with Atcherley’s powers of observation and reflection.
Harold Atcherley was on the way to a successful career with the oil giant, Royal Dutch Shell when war broke out. Commissioned as an intelligence officer at the HQ of the 18th British Infantry Division he arrived in Singapore at the end of January 1942. Two weeks later he was a Prisoner of War. He began writing the diary in May 1942 and continued it until he was repatriated from Singapore in September 1945. Besides the first few months of captivity, which he recreates from memory, the only gap is between April and December of 1943 when he was working on the Burma/Thailand Railway. After the war he returned to Royal Dutch Shell and a career in public service. He was knighted in 1977.
Atcherley’s diary focuses on the day-to-day privations and tedium of camp life and on his state of mind throughout it all. But he writes with both perspective and perception. As an officer, perhaps, he was in a better position than many others to know what was going on in the camp even though what passed for knowledge was often little better than rumour. But as the years wore on he maintained a remarkable level of candour and insight about his feelings and emotions. Letters from home, for example, could be a very mixed blessing. The life they described seemed “so petty with all the stupid social conventions and traditions.” To not receive a letter could be dissatisfying and yet to receive one could be even more so.
The diary was a form of self-discipline, of course. Reading was another. It might be Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism one day and Huxley’s Essays of a Biologist the next; it was in fact. But even an intense and protracted reading regimen did not satisfy the need to keep his mind occupied. And so he took up Italian as well.
The early sections of the book dealing with Atcherley’s enlistment, training and voyage to Singapore perhaps give the impression of a privileged, not to say charmed, life. He was an officer with a batman, after all, and the months before embarkation seemed to be a whirl of dances and dinner parties. My father’s experience as a Royal Army Medical Corps orderly was rather different. But Atcherley was clearly troubled by the disparities in treatment between officers and ranks, for which he could see no justification. Indeed, his generous and fair-minded disposition extended to his assessment of the Japanese and his understanding of the challenges facing the world. By March 1943 (and perhaps much earlier) he had concluded that national sovereignty was an outmoded notion and that people needed to be taught that they had responsibilities to mankind, not just to the state in which they happened to have been born. “I have never wanted to fight Germans or Japanese,” he writes. “How can anyone like or dislike a whole nation?”
A surprising question, perhaps, given Atcherley’s POW experience, but that is precisely why he can ask it with such authority. It is an authority that is further enhanced throughout the published diary by Ronald Searle’s drawings. Atcherley and Searle knew each other at Changi and were together through much of their captivity. Searle captured the face of barbarity as few other artists have managed to do. Prisoner of Japan is a fitting testament to two men – and countless others on both sides – who rose above it.
Thursday, 3 May 2012
Memoirs Publishing: Unshed Tears a Holocaust novel by Edith Hofmann - ...
Unshed Tears a Holocaust novel by Edith Hofmann - Memoirs Publishing...: Unshed Tears, written soon after the war, relates the authors experiences of being deported to Lodz ghetto by the Nazis where both her parents died when she was only 15. After 2 years in Lodz, she was sent to Auschwitz and then Bergen Belsen. Although Unshed Tears has been written as a novel, it details events, which were all too tragically true.
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Memoirs Publishing: A Bowdon Romance by Alice Frank - Memoirs Publishi...
Memoirs Publishing: A Bowdon Romance by Alice Frank - Memoirs Publishi...: A Bowdon Romance is a 19th century period romance novel set in Bowdon, Cheshire and tells of Charlotte who was a humble servant whose main care in life was her daughter Tooty. She only ever loved one man – her first husband, Rodney, who died tragically young. After his death she had no choice but to work long hours for the owners of the big houses of the day in Bowdon and Stockport. It was a hard life for both mother and daughter, but it gave her a perspective on history as she saw the world changing before her eyes and class barriers and prejudices beginning to dissolve.
A Bowdon Romance by Alice Frank - Memoirs Publishing
A Bowdon Romance is a 19th century period romance novel set in Bowdon, Cheshire and tells of Charlotte who was a humble servant whose main care in life was her daughter Tooty.
She only ever loved one man – her first husband, Rodney, who died tragically young. After his death she had no choice but to work long hours for the owners of the big houses of the day in Bowdon and Stockport.
It was a hard life for both mother and daughter, but it gave her a perspective on history as she saw the world changing before her eyes and class barriers and prejudices beginning to dissolve. When a series of terrible crimes come to light, Charlotte begins to wonder if her new friend David is somehow mixed up in them. Fate places her in unique position to understand what has really been happening and who is responsible.
A Bowdon Romance weaves the thread of local history into a fascinating portrait of life as it must have been in 19th century England.
It was a hard life for both mother and daughter, but it gave her a perspective on history as she saw the world changing before her eyes and class barriers and prejudices beginning to dissolve. When a series of terrible crimes come to light, Charlotte begins to wonder if her new friend David is somehow mixed up in them. Fate places her in unique position to understand what has really been happening and who is responsible.
A Bowdon Romance weaves the thread of local history into a fascinating portrait of life as it must have been in 19th century England.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Memoirs Publishing: Pawprints Through My Life by Christine Paradine - ...
Memoirs Publishing: Pawprints Through My Life by Christine Paradine - ...: Christine Paradine first became involved with the rescue and care of animals when she joined the team at the Devon-based animal charity Anim. Listen to her interview about her book.
Pawprints Through My Life by Christine Paradine - Memoirs Publishing
Christine Paradine first became involved with the rescue and care of animals when she joined the team at the Devon-based animal charity Animals in Distress on a voluntary basis. She helped to set up their rescue centre, and for more than 20 years she devoted a large part of her life to caring for abandoned and neglected animals of all kinds.
Pawprints Through My Life is an account of Christine’s many adventures with the animals that came to the centre. It tells of some of the challenging, emotional and amusing and sad experiences of her years with the charity, and of some of the wonderful dogs, cats and other creatures she encountered.
As a little girl growing up in London, Christine Paradine adored dogs so much that she used to pretend to walk an imaginary one every day. On holiday in Somerset she even had a pretend horse called Duncan, which she would insist on taking everywhere with her on an imaginary halter, to the great embarrassment of her parents.
Christine’s passion for animals was put to good use when in later life she joined the team at the Devon-based animal charity Animals in Distress on a voluntary basis. She helped to set up their rescue centre, and for more than 20 years she devoted a large part of her life to caring for abandoned and neglected animals of all kinds. She wrote Pawprints Through My Life as an account of her many adventures with the animals that came to the centre, from cats and dogs to sheep, rabbits, goats, chickens and ducks.
Pawprints Through My Life is an account of Christine’s many adventures with the animals that came to the centre. It tells of some of the challenging, emotional and amusing and sad experiences of her years with the charity, and of some of the wonderful dogs, cats and other creatures she encountered.
As a little girl growing up in London, Christine Paradine adored dogs so much that she used to pretend to walk an imaginary one every day. On holiday in Somerset she even had a pretend horse called Duncan, which she would insist on taking everywhere with her on an imaginary halter, to the great embarrassment of her parents.
Christine’s passion for animals was put to good use when in later life she joined the team at the Devon-based animal charity Animals in Distress on a voluntary basis. She helped to set up their rescue centre, and for more than 20 years she devoted a large part of her life to caring for abandoned and neglected animals of all kinds. She wrote Pawprints Through My Life as an account of her many adventures with the animals that came to the centre, from cats and dogs to sheep, rabbits, goats, chickens and ducks.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
Memoirs Publishing: Memoirs Publishing - Players vs The Unconventional...
Memoirs Publishing: Memoirs Publishing - Players vs The Unconventional...: Lying and deceit wore down Michaela’s self-esteem to the point where she couldn’t trust anyone. Every guy who came her way was a ‘player’ – A novel by Danielle Brand...
Memoirs Publishing - Players vs The Unconventional Woman a novel by Danielle Brand
Lying and deceit wore down Michaela’s self-esteem to the point where she couldn’t trust anyone. Every guy who came her way was a ‘player’ – charming and irresistible, but willing to cheat on her at the flick of a skirt. They all had girlfriends they hadn’t told her about, even illegitimate children. They stole her money and ‘borrowed’ her cars.
Michaela Thompson was a confident, attractive, ambitious young woman with a busy social life and a circle of devoted friends. After studying for a college diploma, she had big plans to set up her own business. Her life was going just fine - until she started getting involved with the wrong kind of men. Every guy who came her way seemed to be a ‘player’ – charming and irresistible, but willing to lie and cheat on her at the flick of a skirt. They all seemed to have girlfriends they hadn’t told her about, even illegitimate children. They stole her money and ‘borrowed’ her cars. Two of them left her pregnant with sons she had to raise on her own.
The lying, the deceit and the abandonment wore down Michaela’s confidence and self-esteem to the point where she felt she couldn’t trust anyone in the world but her children and herself. Finally she managed to use the lessons of her past to move on and rebuild her life. Slowly she became her old self again. From now on she would set her own standards and refuse to get involved with any man who didn’t respect them.
Michaela Thompson was a confident, attractive, ambitious young woman with a busy social life and a circle of devoted friends. After studying for a college diploma, she had big plans to set up her own business. Her life was going just fine - until she started getting involved with the wrong kind of men. Every guy who came her way seemed to be a ‘player’ – charming and irresistible, but willing to lie and cheat on her at the flick of a skirt. They all seemed to have girlfriends they hadn’t told her about, even illegitimate children. They stole her money and ‘borrowed’ her cars. Two of them left her pregnant with sons she had to raise on her own.
The lying, the deceit and the abandonment wore down Michaela’s confidence and self-esteem to the point where she felt she couldn’t trust anyone in the world but her children and herself. Finally she managed to use the lessons of her past to move on and rebuild her life. Slowly she became her old self again. From now on she would set her own standards and refuse to get involved with any man who didn’t respect them.
Monday, 9 April 2012
Memoirs Publishing: Who am I Really by Anna Rosenburg - Memoirs Publis...
Memoirs Publishing: Who am I Really by Anna Rosenburg - Memoirs Publis...: Until she was seven years old, Anna Rosenburg was happy. She lived a simple life in a two-room flat with her devoted father. In Anna’s world...
Who am I Really by Anna Rosenburg - Memoirs Publishing
Until she was seven years old, Anna Rosenburg was happy. She lived a simple life in a two-room flat with her devoted father. In Anna’s world, there was very little to worry about - until a wealthy, high-minded ‘pillar of society’ across the road decided that it really wasn’t right for a little girl to be brought up by a poor father on his own. Telling Anna that they were going for a drive in the country, she took her away to live in a children’s home.
The devastation of this betrayal and the loss of regular contact with her father destroyed Anna’s young world. Her unhappiness was compounded by her confusion over her own identity. What did her black skin mean? Why wasn’t it the same colour as her father’s? Where did she come from? Who was she really?
All is revealed in Anna's book 'Who am I Really' available on Amazon, from www.memoirspublishing or at all good bookstores.
The devastation of this betrayal and the loss of regular contact with her father destroyed Anna’s young world. Her unhappiness was compounded by her confusion over her own identity. What did her black skin mean? Why wasn’t it the same colour as her father’s? Where did she come from? Who was she really?
All is revealed in Anna's book 'Who am I Really' available on Amazon, from www.memoirspublishing or at all good bookstores.
Memoirs Publishing: A Dangerous Obsession by Alice Frank - Memoirs Pub...
Memoirs Publishing: A Dangerous Obsession by Alice Frank - Memoirs Pub...: For more than two years, Rose Elders and her daughter Elizabeth were hounded, bullied and intimidated almost to the point of madness, all be...
A Dangerous Obsession by Alice Frank - Memoirs Publishing
For more than two years, Rose Elders and her daughter Elizabeth were hounded, bullied and intimidated almost to the point of madness, all because certain junior public servants misused their power, while senior ones who could have stopped it failed to use theirs as they should have.
It all started when Elizabeth found she was being stalked by a well-known local misfit who was clearly trying to gain power over the women in order to get his hands on their money. He made a trumped-up claim to the local Social Services mental health team that Elizabeth was abusing her mother, and when Elizabeth complained that he was stalking her he accused her of libel. Then the social worker who had appointed herself to handle the case, for perverted reasons of her own, decided to take the stalker’s side and set out to have Elizabeth certified. Fortunately, her attempts were thwarted by doctors who knew better, but this did not prevent her from making the Elders’ life hell for two years.
The author has written A Dangerous Obsession, based on a true story, to show how open to abuse UK mental health legislation is.
It all started when Elizabeth found she was being stalked by a well-known local misfit who was clearly trying to gain power over the women in order to get his hands on their money. He made a trumped-up claim to the local Social Services mental health team that Elizabeth was abusing her mother, and when Elizabeth complained that he was stalking her he accused her of libel. Then the social worker who had appointed herself to handle the case, for perverted reasons of her own, decided to take the stalker’s side and set out to have Elizabeth certified. Fortunately, her attempts were thwarted by doctors who knew better, but this did not prevent her from making the Elders’ life hell for two years.
The author has written A Dangerous Obsession, based on a true story, to show how open to abuse UK mental health legislation is.
Friday, 30 March 2012
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Memoirs Publishing: The Crocodile's Teeth - Trading, Tyranny & Terrori...
Memoirs Publishing: The Crocodile's Teeth - Trading, Tyranny & Terrori...: “Tonight you will see how we kill our enemies” said Captain Akiki. “It is a rare opportunity to see people being killed at close rang...
The Crocodile's Teeth - Trading, Tyranny & Terrorism on Two Continents
“Tonight you will see how we kill our enemies” said Captain Akiki. “It is a rare opportunity to see people being killed at close range. It will be the experience of a lifetime for you…”
He thrust the barrel into my chest. “Don’t shoot him” the other soldier said. “You will wake Amin’s soldiers. I had better cut his throat.” He held the machete against my throat…
Sam Thaker was born to Indian immigrant parents in Uganda in the days when it was one of the most beautiful, fertile and contented countries in the world. Then Idi Amin swept to power, and under his tyranny Sam’s paradise became a hell on Earth. Having been forced by Amin’s thugs to give up their home and most of their money and possessions, as well as Sam’s thriving air freight business, he and his family began a new life in England as near-penniless refugees.
But Sam was a survivor. Ignoring his bank manager’s patronising advice to open a corner shop, he decided instead to build on his experience in the cargo business to start up a London-based air freight company. Realising the immense potential of the Indian import market, he returned to the land of his fathers to develop business there which eventually led to the company opening offices in eight Indian cities. Along the way he and his wife were caught up in the wave of terrorism which struck Mumbai in 1993 and again in 2008, and narrowly escaped the floods which engulfed the city in 2005 and drowned more than 5000 people. The Crocodile’s Teeth is a fascinating portrait of survival and resourcefulness against a background of tyranny and terror on two continents.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Memoirs Publishing: Death on the Home Straight - a modern thriller wit...
Memoirs Publishing: Death on the Home Straight - a modern thriller wit...: Gripping, unnerving and terrifying, the thriller 'Death on the Home Straight' by Iris V. Penn is a truly compelling read. As the title sugg...
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Unshed Tears a Holocaust novel by Edith Hofmann - Memoirs Publishing
Unshed Tears, written soon after the war, relates the authors experiences of being deported to Lodz ghetto by the Nazis where both her parents died when she was only 15. After 2 years in Lodz, she was sent to Auschwitz and then Bergen Belsen. Although Unshed Tears has been written as a novel, it details events, which were all too tragically true.
In the summer of 1944, with the Russians advancing, the whole Ghetto population of Lodz including Edith Hofmann were herded into cattle trucks and sent to Auschwitz. She was aged only 17 and one of the lucky ones. For the majority it was their final journey. A small group of people were selected for work. So, with her hair shaved off and deprived of all her possessions, she travelled to Kristianstadt, a labour camp in Silesia to work in an underground munitions factory.
In January 1945, with the Russians approaching again, she was sent off on a death march across snow covered Germany to Bavaria. There cattle trucks were waiting for her. Spending a week in crowded conditions without food or water she arrived in Bergen Belsen on 15th March. A month later she was liberated.
In January 1945, with the Russians approaching again, she was sent off on a death march across snow covered Germany to Bavaria. There cattle trucks were waiting for her. Spending a week in crowded conditions without food or water she arrived in Bergen Belsen on 15th March. A month later she was liberated.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Death on the Home Straight - a modern thriller with a horse racing theme
Gripping, unnerving and terrifying, the thriller 'Death on the Home Straight' by Iris V. Penn is a truly compelling read. As the title suggests the narrative is set amidst the exciting and exhilarating world of horse racing and gambling.
Iris Penn writes in first person, starting with two powerful sentences.
‘The word was indelibly printed on my mind – conspiracy. Had Ken just got in the way of the wrong people?’
By structuring the first sentence in such a way, emphasis is added to the word ‘conspiracy’. This immediately and dramatically sets the tone of the narrative leaving you intrigued. As if you were not already engaged, Iris Penn then uses a literacy device known as a narrative hook, a question. Although the question is rhetorical it serves to further involve you, the reader in the plot, leaving you gripped from here on in.
The narrator and protagonist, Valerie Elphick is the personal assistant and close friend of the recently deceased insurance underwriter Ken Hinde. a keen horse racing fan. Ken died as a result of suspicious car crash, when returning home from a meeting at Kempton Racecourse. The car he was driving ran inexplicably out of control. He died a few hours later in hospital, the doctors unable to revive him. The Coroner’s verdict as to the cause of death is accidental but Valerie doubts this due to certain events after the apparent accident and also wonders what happened to two valuable race horses.
In 'Death on the Home Straight' Valerie sets out to discover the truth, beginning her investigation in East London and ending at the famous Cheltenham Festival. Yet she attracts the unwanted attention of people who will stop at nothing to hide the truth about why Ken really had died and what had truly happened to two valuable race horses. As the plot unfolds, the narration turns from mysterious and puzzling to terrifying.
Author Iris Penn is a lifelong racing aficionado and a member of the Elite Racing Club. Her insight into the sport adds authenticity to the characters and narrative making her debuting novel ‘Death on the Home Straight’ both vivid and powerful.
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