Previous Chapter: On board SS Oronsay (Under attack)
October and November 1940
After a few days of this we were given railway warrants for ten days “survivors” leave, and I had the unexpected pleasure of seeing Beccy and our new son Michael, who had been born just about the time that we embarked at Liverpool. The ten days seemed to go by in a flash and we had another painful farewell and then off again, this time to the Isle of Man, where we were to guard enemy aliens who were interned there. They were the class of alien, who had previously been allowed to live in Britain, as they were not considered to be a security risk. Now, with the invasion scare, everyone was rounded up.
The prison camp was constructed in the most simple and effective manner. Along the sea front at Douglas, the principal town of the island, ran a long line of tall Victorian boarding houses and hotels, and a whole block of thirty or forty of these had been commandeered, and sealed off by building a tall chain link fence right around them, taking in the street at the back, and half of the promenade at the front, forming a space for exercise. We solemnly marched backwards and forwards outside the wire. The inmates looked a sorry lot and many of them appeared to be Italian ice cream vendors, restaurant owners and the like. The authorities released those they considered harmless once they had had time to sort them out.
We were billeted out in various boarding houses in the town, and fed by the landlady. Each morning the six of us in our house clattered down the stairs, had porridge and kippers for breakfast and marched off to do our stint on guard. We were told that we would be doing this for at least six months. After a few days we were bored stiff and the charms of Douglas soon palled.
The story of six months guarding internees must have been put about for security reasons, for within a couple of weeks we were suddenly assembled and marched down to the pier where we went aboard the ferry “Mona’s Isle” and set sail, destination unknown.