Interview with Kathleen Mary 'Molly' Deans

Interview with Kathleen Mary 'Molly' Deans

Molly Deans was the wife of James ‘Dixie’ Deans who was the leader of several prisoner of war camps after he was shot down in September 1940. She describes the struggle to find out what had happened to him after he was posted as missing. She received coded letters from him which she was instructed to pass on. Molly joined the Land Army and after a time in the War Agriculture Committee she became a rat catcher.

01:02:54 audio recording

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MD: He didn’t suffer fools gladly. Of course, he was so very friendly with John Bristow. I mean he was the one that sent all the messages back you know was Bristow. I mean he did some fantastic things.
Interviewer: Well, it’s really your husband and Bristow I think who would be the two main people.
MD: Bristow was amazing. But mind you he enjoyed being a POW.
Interviewer: Bristow?
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: I thought he, I thought he wanted to get out at every possible opportunity.
MD: No, I don’t think [pause] Oh, he might have wanted to get out but he still enjoyed it and when he came back I can always remember him saying he’d have to go to a holiday camp for a holiday because it would be the nearest thing he could get to a POW camp.
Interviewer: Oh, Dixie said that?
MD: No. Bristow.
Interviewer: Bristow. Right. Oh I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I was thinking Grimson. I apologise.
MD: Bristow.
Interviewer: Yes.
MD: Oh no. I don’t know that Bristow wanted to escape. I’ve never heard that.
Interviewer: No. I’m sorry. I was thinking of Grimson. I’m sorry.
MD: Oh, Grimson. Oh that’s another story isn’t it? No, but well I don’t even know the story of Grimson. In fact, there’s people think he’s still alive.
Interviewer: I know. I know. I’m sure that isn’t right. But —
MD: Well I don’t think he’s still alive but —
Interviewer: It’s quite clear the Russians probably killed some of them.
MD: Yes. Somebody got him.
Interviewer: You say there are not that many alive. There are particularly quite a few.
MD: Yeah, but what I mean —
Interviewer: There’s Patch and —
MD: Yeah, but you see they weren’t close to Dixie those people. They weren’t in his office. That’s what I mean.
Interviewer: Joe [Hansett] was —
MD: Oh, don’t talk to me about that silly so and so [laughs]
Interviewer: Do I need to be careful when I talk to him? He doesn’t stop talking of course does he?
MD: He’s a, he’s a clever clogs that one. I have no time for him. I’m sorry.
Interviewer: But Alfie I thought was very interesting.
MD: Oh Alfie. Alfie’s a sweetie and Alfie, quite frankly I can’t understand Alfie saying to you that he couldn’t remember anything because he can.
Interviewer: Oh I know. Absolutely everything. But what I’m going to do is make a list of questions and then write to him and then we can chat about those because he went to Lübeck to get the parcels.
MD: That’s what, that’s why I meant. That’s what I said to you, you see. He was with him. He was so close to him. They went together to get the Red Cross parcels and Alfie knew more what was going on than anybody. I mean, I don’t think Cal and all these others knew exactly what was going on.
Interviewer: Oh no. Cal says that. I mean from Cal I’m hoping to learn what it was like.
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: As an ordinary Krieg in the camp.
MD: That’s what I, yes you —
Interviewer: Oh yeah. Cal doesn’t pretend. He said he only really knew him after the, after the war.
MD: Yeah. That’s right and I don’t think Joe [Hansett] was close to him either. I’ll tell you who probably will try to tell you he is. Graham Hall.
Interviewer: Ah. I’m glad you brought that up because I have —
MD: Because Graham Hall —
Interviewer: He calls me almost every day now. I said that I’d come down to see you after Easter when I’m less busy but he still rings up most days with a couple of new stories. Well, tell me a little bit about Graham. I rang Alfie straight after talking to Graham and said you know how much do I pay attention to this and he just, well —
MD: He said none.
Interviewer: Well, I have a feeling that —
MD: Because Graham Hall has never forgiven Dixie for being the camp leader.
Interviewer: I sort of got that impression. I don’t want to offend anybody with the film so I suspect I probably will use a pseudonym for Graham Hall’s type of character. I don’t want to —
MD: Oh.
Interviewer: There’s no reason to upset anybody.
MD: Oh no.
Interviewer: That’s what I’m thinking.
MD: But Graham Hall is Graham for Graham Hall and he was only interested in Graham Hall.
Interviewer: He does appear to have been the person who sort of initiated the codes and that sort of thing which is quite clever.
MD: Oh, he may have done. I don’t, I don’t know anything about the codes because you know I’ve got all his letters and you know the ones that have got red ticks on I was supposed to scrutinise and take them to the police station.
Interviewer: Yes.
MD: And the police didn’t want to know. I can’t remember how many of them have got red ticks on now but they’re all here. The whole lot of them. Every one he wrote. Postcards as well.
Interviewer: How often did, did they manage to correspond?
MD: They must have done a lot mustn’t they because look at this.
Interviewer: He was there a long time of course.
MD: Well, yes. Four years. I can’t see —
Interviewer: It’s longer. It was five years wasn’t it?
MD: Four years and eight months.
Interviewer: Four years and eight months. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have —
MD: I don’t know whether there’s any of these have got red ticks. There must be some that have got red ticks on.
Interviewer: Oh, you were in Harrogate then.
MD: Oh yes. I was married in Harrogate. He was at Dishforth.
Interviewer: My wife’s from, I mean its Sheffield. Not the most attractive area of Yorkshire but we go to Harrogate quite often.
MD: My cousin’s wife came from Sheffield. No, they don’t look to have any red ticks on these. I don’t know whether I had to give them up. They’re all here. The whole lot.
Interviewer: When did you get, when did you get married?
MD: The 4th of May 1940. He was shot down on the 10th of September was it? 1940.
Interviewer: Had you known each other a long time before then?
MD: Well, about eighteen months. He was stationed at Dishforth. I met him through a friend of mine. He would never let me go in the Mess. I was never, I never went in the Sergeant’s Mess ever.
Interviewer: Did any women?
MD: Pardon?
Interviewer: Did any women go in the Sergeant’s Mess unless they were single?
MD: My friend. Well, she went in the Officer’s Mess. Her fiancé was an officer but he, Jimmy wouldn’t have let me in anyway. No way.
Interviewer: Why? Was he worried you’d be offended by the language?
MD: I’ve no idea. He wouldn’t tell me but he just wouldn’t let you go in. Wouldn’t take you in.
Interviewer: When did he join the RAF?
MD: ’36. After his mother died. He was training to be an accountant and I don’t think he took his final exams. I’m not sure. And then his mother died and that’s when he joined. I think it —
Interviewer: He was, he was from Kelvinside in Glasgow which is quite a genteel area isn’t it? It’s quite nice. So presumably he didn’t sort of speak with a standard Glasgow accent.
MD: No. He hadn’t. No. No. I was going to say was it Kelvinside? I was trying to think.
Interviewer: Well, I got that from the obituary but of course it’s perfectly feasible that it was wrong.
MD: Oh well it could [pause] No. It probably is right. Probably is right. But we never went. He never went back to see, only his sister. One sister he only ever went back to see. He never went, bothered with any of the rest of his family. I don’t know why. He wouldn’t tell you but I [pause] I don’t think he’d got much patience with some of them. I don’t know.
Interviewer: When did you join the Land Army actually? I saw a film. Well, there’s a new film coming out. I don’t know. You’ll probably see it this summer and my main job is reviewing movies for the Mirror. So just last week I saw this thing. It’s called, “Land Girls,” about three girls from different sort of branches of society who end up on this extremely muddy farm.
MD: Well, the thing was you see when he was shot down I was working in a dress shop in Harrogate. I had a lovely boss and she was ever so nice. In fact, she was the one when he was shot down that came over. My mother couldn’t. Well, she’d got married again my mother and I couldn’t stand my stepfather. Anyway, that’s another story and Miss Gill died. She had cancer and I was married but you see I was single as far as the country was concerned. I could be called up and I knew perfectly well as much as I would have liked to have joined the WAAF Jimmy would have hit the roof and it would have finished him off. So there wasn’t anything. I didn’t want to go in a factory so the only other thing was to go in the Land Army. Well, I went in the Land Army in Harrogate and was given the job of working for a market gardener. He had me digging six or seven hours a day. He was a terrible man. And then I went to work for the War Agricultural Committee which was a big laugh because I was following a machine that was putting cabbages in and putting the ones in that the machine didn’t put in [laughs] and the pigeons ate them all. And then they had to give that up so I was transferred to the Pest Department and I finished up a rat catcher.
Interviewer: Good grief.
MD: [laughs] and Air Force camps were the worst. On D-Day when we were trapping rabbits in a wood near York but Air Force you used to have the perimeter you know with the wire all around and we had to pick up the dead rats after we, we bated them Monday and Tuesday. We left them on Wednesday and on Thursday we poisoned them and we picked the dead ones up on Friday and Saturday and no matter how many dead ones were at the other side of the wire those blessed airmen wouldn’t get out the window and throw them over to you. We had miles to walk around to pick up the dead rats. And one day I was walking around with a sack of dead rats on my back carrying them and this airman, he was an Australian came past and he said, ‘Excuse me. Could you tell me what you’ve got in that sack?’ You see. I said, ‘Yes. Dead rats.’ He said, ‘Can I have a look?’ I said, ‘Yeah. If you want to.’ And he walked away saying, ‘Well, I can’t understand it. I can’t understand it.’ [laughs]
Interviewer: They would probably have eaten them if they could rats by the end in the east. I haven’t seen. I mean I’ve read several books but nobody actually suggests that but [unclear]
MD: But we had to bury them. We had [laughs] on Saturday we had to bury them.
Interviewer: It sounds lovely. I’d still rather be doing that I think than —
MD: It was a lot of fun actually.
Interviewer: Trying to get milk out of a cow.
MD: Actually we had an awful lot of fun because mind you we did a lot of skiving off. We had to cycle within a radius of ten miles. So you can imagine in Harrogate cycling up over the Moors where the Army camps —
Interviewer: Yeah.
MD: The camps were, and a lot of the farms were up there and the farmer’s wives would give you a shopping list. So before we went off we’d shop in the morning for them and take the stuff up you see and this particular, it was Christmas and we’d gone up with the shopping and when we got there the farmer said to us, we were supposed we were supposed to be, we used to have to dig for worms for moles, to poison moles and we used to carry strychnine around. Tins of strychnine like that and we we got there and we were supposed to be moleing five hundred acres you see. He said, ‘I’ll sign your timesheets.’ He said, ‘You’re going to be plucking turkeys.’ I said, ‘I’m not plucking turkeys. I’ve never plucked a turkey in my life and I’m not doing it now.’ He said, ‘Oh yes you are. I’ll sign your timesheets. That’s alright.’ [laughs]
Interviewer: Actually I’m beginning to think the film might have been quite accurate because they seemed to have a quite a fun time. I kept thinking they wouldn’t get away with this.
MD: And hay making time I mean you’d go around and they’d be haymaking and you’d say we’ve got to go.’ ‘Oh, don’t bother about that. We don’t mind.’ And one kid, this one is hilarious. We, we went to one farm one day and we thought we’d like a rabbit you see and we were sitting under a hedge eating our lunch because lots of them wouldn’t even take you in and we said to Alan, ‘Can you catch us a rabbit?’ You see. So he said, ‘Yes, alright.’ There were dozens of them. I mean we could have reported them and when he, we were debating what we’d pay him for this rabbit. Anyway, we decided to ask him how much he wanted for it. ‘Four and six. Controlled price.’ [laughs] I tell you you wouldn’t believe it. Oh yes. We had a lot of fun.
Interviewer: So you should go and see this film when its released. It’s not a wonderful film but I think it seems to capture the period.
MD: Oh yes. Well, but you see they all lived in hostels didn’t they? Which was different. I lived at home.
Interviewer: Oh yes. Now this well this one is on a farm near Southampton.
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: Actually living on a farm.
MD: Yeah. They lived at, I didn’t live on a farm. I said I wasn’t going to live —
Interviewer: You were probably quite lucky I think.
MD: Oh yeah. Well, we cycled from home.
Interviewer: When did, when did your husband know that he was ill?
MD: When he came home he went to Oxford and he didn’t get a degree because I’ve forgotten who the Chancellor was told him he was better coming down a potential first than only getting a third. So he applied for a job and he got a job with Tootals in Bolton. Graham was six months so that would be [pause] Graham is fifty two this year. Is he fifty two or fifty one? He was born in ’46. And he got this job with Tootals and he woke up one morning and he, half his face was paralysed, he was walking with a lurch and his speech was affected and he went to the Tootals doctor which probably was the worst thing that could have happened because he was studying MS and he sent him to Bolton for a lumbar puncture because that’s the only way they can tell you’ve got MS if they give you a lumbar puncture. Well then, Tootals said to him, ‘You’re no more use to us.’ You see they could in those days. He’d already rung another POW up who was in the unemployment place and he said, ‘Oh, don’t worry Dixie we’ll get you a job.’ Well then he came back to him. He said, ‘It’s not going to be that easy because anybody who knows you’ve got it is not going to give you a job.’ Well, he got an interview for LSC and he never told them he’d got MS because nobody would have known and he got the job. But he never went in the pension scheme and they didn’t force him to. Mind you later on they found out he’d got it and and when they made him retire they gave him a pension for as long as he was alive but I don’t get a pension from them.
Interviewer: Graham Hall, who I know one needs to be slightly suspect about what he says but he was, he gave me the impression that that he knew that he wasn’t well before he was shot down and didn’t want to say anything.
MD: He’d got double vision before he was shot down.
Interviewer: Right.
MD: He was having, the Air Force knew about it. He’d got double vision and he was having, they said it was conjunctivitis. That’s what they said it was and they were putting drops in his eyes for conjunctivitis and they were keeping him on flying. What was it? Five nights out of seven at that time. But I mean other than that he didn’t know he’d got anything else wrong with him.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MD: He had no idea.
Interviewer: Right. So that’s a little different. Well, Graham Hall had said that Dixie didn’t want to go to the doctors because he was worried that he’d be accused of lack of moral fibre. Which was like what they, you know what they said to them if they didn’t want to fly. Frankly how any of them could do what they did is beyond me.
MD: Well, he did go to the doctors and they did know he’d got —
Interviewer: Right.
MD: And they did say it was conjunctivitis and that’s why in the end when Wings, they came back and Massey and all of them and when they found out that he’d got MS and they then said, ‘Well, you’ve got to get a war pension.’
MD: They were able to say, well the Air Force said it was conjunctivitis and they should have gone further into it and found out what it was because there was another fellow and I think he’s since died and I can’t remember his name, I couldn’t tell you his name for love nor money. I can see his wife now and he developed it and he was still in the Air Force. This was after the war and he rang Jimmy up and said, ‘Tell me. How did you manage to get a pension?’ But you see I wouldn’t have got a war pension. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he had a constant attendance allowance because my friend over the road her husband was a McIndoe’s Guinea Pig.
Interviewer: Right.
MD: A hundred percent disabled. Died with a tumour on the brain and she doesn’t get a war pension. I mean —
Interviewer: I mean, I’ve been —
MD: And the Guinea Pigs wouldn’t fight it for her.
Interviewer: I mean I’ve been hearing so many stories about pensions.
MD: I know. It’s dreadful really when you think of all these people today that the country are keeping because they keep on having kids and you know it really makes you cross.
Interviewer: I know. I understand. Well that’s one of the things that we might be able to, you know in the closing credits for the movie that’s one thing we might —
MD: But Joan’s tried. She’s tried ever so hard.
Interviewer: Well, I’m hoping. The thing is I don’t know what chance there is of getting this made. I think now that these people are interested it’s about maybe twenty five percent. It’s a very good time for trying to get movies made in Britain.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: What with, “The Full Monty,” and everything people are desperate to put money in but I would hope that if we did it would give the people who have been campaigning for POWs another peg to try and bring their case —
MD: It’s too late though isn’t it?
Interviewer: Well, it just annoys me so much how the government pays the people who did the most extraordinary things. It’s just —
MD: Because my granddaughter you know is Tracy [Woodmore-Smith.] I don’t know if you know her.
Interviewer: No. Is she the one in [pause] Tracy.
MD: Yes, I’ve got, actually you can see it before you go, it only take two minutes because it’s the Cinderella Project but it is going to be called, “Forever After,” because Disney won’t let them call it Cinderella.
Interviewer: I can’t believe Disney claim the rights to Cinderella. It doesn’t surprise me. Disney are horrible.
MD: And the person who’s, a new version of Cinderella, 20th Century Fox are doing it. Drew Barry is in it.
Interviewer: Drew Barrymore.
MD: Oh, is that it? Barrymore. Yes, Drew Barrymore. Yes.
Interviewer: Yes. That sounds great. Which other films has she worked on because I’ve probably seen her name. I recognise —
MD: The Crucible.
Interviewer: Oh yes. I know.
MD: And, “The Fatherland.” But she didn’t get the credits as she should have done. I don’t know why? Somebody else, you know she did the work and didn’t get —
Interviewer: And what, what does she do?
MD: She’s assistant editor.
Interviewer: Right.
MD: On this. She’s coming over this month. They’re going to finish it at Twickenham.
Interviewer: I’d quite like to, there are two, well there is one other reason I’d quite like to meet her anyway is that I was once told by a producer that the one person writers should always become friendly with is the editor because editors are very good at spotting a script. Well, at least —
MD: I can show you a picture of her on this. It’s only two minutes.
Interviewer: Yeah.
MD: But it should be longer but it doesn’t work on my video. I don’t think I’ve got a new enough video.
[pause]
MD: I’m going to try. He’s quite bloody minded. Actually he’s living with me at the moment because he’s divorced.
Interviewer: What was [pause] One thing worries me just a little bit is that everybody who talks about him makes him out to be sort of a hero. A saint. I mean what were the bad things about him because it’s often quite boring to have somebody on screen who is you know, a complete wonderful human. You said stubborn but then probably that would have been an asset I guess in the camps.
MD: I don’t really know.
Interviewer: Did nothing irritate you about him?
MD: Well, some, I mean he could clam up and not talk to you just like Graham does and you couldn’t really get through to him sometimes. I think you’d be better talking to his daughter than me. You see the trouble was that after he came back I mean we had a pretty tough time because what with him having MS and then getting a job and going up to London I used to, once I’d learned to drive the car which I did after he’d had, we’d been on holiday at Walton on the Naze and we all had a beach hut and we’d got some friends in the next beach hut and I’d gone to talk to them and when I went back I said, ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ And they said, ‘We don’t know. He went off up onto the green with Graham and Graham’s come back and he won’t talk to anybody.’ And apparently what had happened there had been a man up there with one of these aeroplanes on a string and Jimmy had got down on his hands and knees to get out of the way and the bloke had brought it further down and caught him on the head. Graham had come running back and wouldn’t talk to anybody and they’d taken Jimmy into a house. And when I went up on the Green he, you know they said, ‘He's in the house over there.’ And it was after that I learned to drive the car because I couldn't drive the car. He just [laughs] well he’d tried to teach me to drive the car and he said to me after he came back after being a POW, ‘The first, second, third, reverse. Now, drive it.’ And I said, ‘First, second, third, reverse. Drive the bloody thing yourself [laughs] I mean if that’s your attitude I don’t want to know.’ And this made me decide then that I had to go and have lessons and learn to drive the car because there was no way that [pause] he did drive back but he really was in a bad way and he had to have stitches in his head. He could be difficult. There was no two ways about it. He wasn’t all that easy to live with. I mean, but he was a bit like Graham you see. Graham I can’t talk to. He would clam up and you can’t say much to them. They don’t. I don’t know. I suppose because he’s Scots and I’m Yorkshire. It’s probably a bit of a clash. I don’t know.
Interviewer: I mean I’ll get to hear obviously on the tapes the way he talked but was it when you watch old movies about the RAF it’s nearly, the trouble is it’s almost always fighter pilots you see but they always talked in that sort of strange English public school, sort of almost not quite jolly hockey sticks sort of thing but I assume he wasn’t like that was he?
MD: Oh no. He went to an ordinary state school. Oh no. No. He had a very distinctive voice. People always used to say that. He had a lovely voice. There was no two ways about it.
Interviewer: I look forward to hearing. Yeah. When he came back from the camps had his, had the illness got any worse? The double vision or was it pretty much the same as far as you could tell as when he went away?
MD: Well, when they came back they put them all into hospital. Not straight away. I can’t just remember now. They said they’d all got to go to hospital and then be vetted but no I don’t think the double vision had got any worse. Not that I can remember. But you see Catherine will tell you. She didn’t even know she had a father until she was about eleven because she never saw much of him. I mean he used to go to work and come home and was so tired that it was as much as he could do —
Interviewer: I suppose I could say the same thing about my dad I’m sure. My kids would probably say it about me. Actually I work at home so I see them a bit during the day.
MD: I was going to say you probably see them more but he didn’t because you see he had to come out here. I mean I used to go and take him to the station latterly. Well, not latterly. Quite a lot of the time and I mean I used to have to sit at the station because he could never get on a train unless he could get a seat. He couldn’t walk over Waterloo Bridge to the station because I always remember I went to an evening class and I was talking to a lady there and she, she was, she said to me, ‘Always remember that if he has an accident and is taken in by the police you’ve got to get yourself down there as fast as you can and tell them he's got MS because they’ll think he’s drunk.’
Interviewer: Yeah.
MD: Which is what they do think of people with MS. Mind you they’re more understanding today. I mean they weren’t in those days. I mean I’m talking about —
Interviewer: You had me right before when you were talking about half his face frozen and trouble with speech because I had that. I got that about six months ago but it’s something called Bell’s palsy.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: A very —
MD: Well, that’s right.
Interviewer: Not very serious and just goes away. I’m glad I didn’t know it was a symptom of MS. I would have been a bit worried.
MD: I’m going to say you’d have kittens.
Interviewer: So, how did you, I mean bearing in mind most of the people who went missing in Bomber Command didn’t even, you know, were never heard of again what, what, how did you hear that he, that his plane wasn’t coming back?
MD: My uncle heard Lord Haw Haw give it out on the radio.
Interviewer: Really?
MD: Yes. And rang me up and I told the Air Force. They didn’t want to know. He was missing. They stopped my allowance. They came to the, where I was and asked me for his [pause] did they ask me for his uniforms? I can’t remember what else they asked me for and I said I wouldn’t give them it unless they found his bicycle. I was quite tough. That was at Linton on Ouse. I had to go out and ask somebody why he hadn’t come back. They didn’t come and tell me.
Interviewer: So you didn’t even know that his plane hadn’t come back.
MD: No. No.
Interviewer: Lord Haw Haw presumably said he was a POW.
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: Yes.
MD: They’d got him and the thing was that we’d been stationed at Driffield previously and they’d sent the telegram to Driffield.
Interviewer: Right.
MD: Not to Linton on Ouse where he was shot down from. Where we were living. And I had to go out the next day to see the fellow that used to pick him up in the morning and say to him, ‘What happened?’ And he said, ‘Haven’t they been and told you?’ And I said, ‘No,’ and I think I had a raw deal actually with the Air Force.
Interviewer: Well, if it, if it’s any consolation I don’t think it’s rare. I mean there’s a lot —
MD: Oh no. I don’t think it is.
Interviewer: There’s a book called, “Prisoners of the Reich,” I’ve been reading which is very interesting and there are quite a lot of people went to the Air Force or the Air Ministry and said, you know —
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Haw Haw has said this.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Or even in some cases their husbands had written to them or got a message to them and they would just ignore it all the time. Partly they claimed because it was much better to get official notification than not.
MD: Well, they wouldn’t pay you anything until you got official notice. They just stopped everything.
Interviewer: The allowance was stopped.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Because they believed that he was missing.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Maybe dead. And you got no allowance then.
MD: No.
Interviewer: But once they were actually a POW you got, was it half [unclear]
MD: I got fifty nine shillings a week allowed. That’s what I lived on and I, believe you me I paid the rent, and I saved money because the youngsters today can’t understand it. Mind you I only earned two pounds a week as a Land Girl and that was well paid supposedly. Was it two? No. It was a shilling an hour. Something like that. Yeah. I think we got a shilling an hour.
Interviewer: So was it quite, presumably it was quite difficult? I mean, if you had known him for eighteen months and you got married just for, just for a few months and then he sort of vanished completely.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: How easy was it?
MD: Well, it wasn’t.
Interviewer: Keeping in, not very easy presumably keeping in touch.
MD: When he —
Interviewer: Did you have other friends who were in a similar situation?
MD: No. Not really. My friend wasn’t married at the time. Two of my friends, neither of them were married. No. It wasn’t that easy. I mean if you were to talk to Peggy she would probably tell you I could be as miserable as sin if I hadn’t heard from him [laughs] or had a letter for ages.
Interviewer: And what did he find to write about because again in this book, “Prisoners of the Reich,” talks about the prisoners found it very difficult unless they were very imaginative because life was so monotonous.
MD: Well, it was. That’s true. Yes. Well, they used to write. I can’t remember. I haven’t read any of them recently. Well, I haven’t read them for years. I don’t remember really [pause] Probably a lot of the time they were writing and telling you what they wanted sending and what was going on. Jimmy used to write and say what was going on in the camp with the other POWs. Various ones and because what was going on with Ron Mogg because Ron Mogg had got one girl over here and another one somewhere else I think.
Interviewer: What? Not in the camp.
MD: No. Not in the camp.
Interviewer: Oh.
MD: But in England. I think he was writing to two. But mind you I think that probably happened with a lot of them.
Interviewer: I’ve heard some quite bizarre questions about some of the guys who were on the —
MD: Oh.
Interviewer: Working parties there.
MD: Yes. And then did you hear about the one that ate a food parcel and blew up?
Interviewer: Oh yes. But Graham Hall was talking about some work party these Army guys were on and they were sent to do farm work and what they were really doing was they were sort of being used as studs for the Polish girls who were working on the farm and the farmer’s wife whose husband had died.
MD: Yes. I don’t know. There’s some awful things but then there are awful things are going on today aren’t they in all these countries?
Interviewer: When, when he came back and got out of the hospital you said he didn’t say anything about the time in Germany but obviously you’ve learned quite a lot about it. Did it surprise you when you learned what he had done and how much everybody looked up to him?
MD: Yes, it did actually. Although I suppose I did know because I can always remember one wife. What was it she said to me? She was quite nasty. Oh when that picture because the Red Cross asked if they could put it in the window of the Red Cross shop in Harrogate and this POW’s wife said to me, ‘Well, the only thing of course that’s missing is his halo.’
Interviewer: I got the impression from everybody that he never boasted —
MD: He didn’t.
Interviewer: About what he did. It was other people that talked about it.
MD: He wouldn’t. Oh, it’s other people. He wouldn’t. You try and find anything out from him. All I know is what other people has talked about. I mean when we’ve gone to New Zealand and Australia and Canada it’s all what other people, I’ve heard them talking about. I mean I can remember being in Canada and it was the wife said to me, they’d got this meeting, they were all sat in, they called them back yards, in the back yard and she said to me, ‘What do you want to do, Molly?’ I said, ‘Well, all I really want to do is get my hair done.’ And she said, ‘Oh right. Well, I’ll see.’ And she came back, she said, ‘You can have your hair done at — ’ such and such a time. ‘Are you going to tell them?’ I said, ‘No. They won’t miss me.’ I said, 'If I go they won’t even know I’ve gone.’ And they didn’t. And this bloke that was taking us around he was taking us to stay with his aunt which the house was just like, “Arsenic and Old Lace,” and we left this place, this back yard I don’t know what time it was. He was taking us to his Golf Club for a meal. Everything was off when we got to the Golf Club except sausages. We took his, he took us to his aunt’s house. When we got there he’d lost the key to get in [laughs] I tell you the things that happened to me. We went to stay with Bill [unclear] on his island. Oh, and this same fellow at the same time we were going to stay with Bill on his island on the lake we get down to the lake and we are supposed to blow on the horn twice and then Bill will come down and meet us. We blew on the horn twice and nothing happened. This is midnight and so this fellow said, ‘Oh, well I’ll row up the lake and find them.’ And then Arthur [Avery] said he’d go and Phil threw a fit and, ‘Arthur can’t go. Arthur can’t go.’ So, I said, ‘Well, let Jimmy go. He’ll go.’ ‘You can’t let him go. We can’t let Dixie go. I said, ‘Why not?’ Anyway, within the next few minutes Bill [unclear] came down and this he says, ‘Where the hell have you lot been?’ I said, ‘Well, we got to the border and this bloke that was taking us decided he wanted to have a meal.’ It didn’t matter about Bill been sitting waiting for us at the roadside. These are all the things that have happened to me overseas I’ll tell you. What happened in Australia? No. In New Zealand. Oh, we were going through Milford Sound and it was a lovely day and we got there and the next thing is we get a telephone message. ‘For God’s sake you’d better get Dixie out. It’s going to snow and we don’t want him stuck here. Get him out.’ But and they got his wheelchair stuck in the boot of a car [laughs] and couldn’t get it out. I think it was one they’d borrowed from the Red Cross. Oh, I tell you the things —

Interviewer: You said before when they came to try and get his, why they’d want his uniform back I don’t know. Probably to re-use I suppose. But you wanted his bike back which is quite interesting for me because of course he ended up on the bike on the march as his way of keeping the morale up. So what was, did he use the bike to cycle to —
MD: He used to cycle from the digs to the airfield backwards and forwards and I mean bikes were quite expensive I mean and difficult to get. So I wasn’t for playing. If they weren’t going to give me the bike back blow that but the next thing that happened was a bloke came and he said he’d got the bike and could he buy it? Which I said yes. I think he gave me a fiver for it. Something like that. I can’t remember.
Interviewer: What sort of digs? You were in digs in Harrogate.
MD: No. I lived at home when I was in Harrogate. I was in, when we first got married we went to live in digs at Knaresborough and then he was stationed at Driffield and we went to Driffield and we had a fantastic landlady in Driffield. A Mrs Bradshaw and her son was ten. I know as, he was a schoolteacher, he’s retired now has Malcolm I’m still friendly with him and she was marvellous was Mrs Bradshaw to us because we, Jimmy and I had one bedroom and a sitting room and Angela and Don [Rics] had another and they had a child. And I always remember when we were posted Mrs Bradshaw said to me, ‘And next time you go into digs with somebody, Molly make sure they haven’t got a child.’ She said, ‘Because you know who’s done all the work here. You.’ Because Angela used to smoke and she used to go and skive off and smoke and she used to leave Margaret and I to do all the washing and she had a great big washing boiler in an outhouse.
Interviewer: Right.
MD: You won’t have seen one. Fire thing, and we used to do the washing in there and I can always remember Jimmy coming in this particular night. There was an air raid and he came in and we were all sat up and he was furious with us. He said, ‘What the hell do you lot think you’re doing? You’re just doing what Hitler wants you to do.’ We were [laughs] we were sat up peeling potatoes or something. He said, ‘You should all be in bed asleep instead of sitting up here doing what he wants you to do.’
Interviewer: I don’t understand that.
MD: No. I don’t.
Interviewer: Why? Peeling potatoes seems as useful as anything else.
MD: Well, we thought we’d do them because we thought we’d have to go to bed later on to get some sleep because Driffield was bombed early on you know. We were bombed out of Driffield. That’s why we went to Linton on Ouse because it was so near the coast. It wasn’t the best of places to be because Graham Hall was at Driffield too.
Interviewer: He was shot down earlier wasn’t he?
MD: Not much earlier, was he? I can’t remember.
Interviewer: I can’t remember. I’ve got it written down.
MD: Well, I didn’t know him until he came home anyway. Because you see we didn’t —
Interviewer: So you were in, you were in, you were living in Linton then when —
MD: When he was shot down. Linton on Ouse. Yes.
Interviewer: In digs again.
MD: Yes. But you see we never met a lot of Air Force people because we didn’t go out particularly because by the time they came back and they’d been flying they were tired. You’d probably go out for a walk. I can’t remember now. It’s all so long ago.
Interviewer: Well, he did get shot down. That was —
MD: Who? Graham Hall.
Interviewer: No, Dixie had already, he’d already flown. He’d only just come back hadn’t he from one.
MD: Yeah. He did five nights out of seven because his logbook is, I’ll tell you where his logbook is if you wanted to see it. It’s in the Air Warfare Museum at Lashenden. They’ve got it.
[clocks chiming]
Interviewer: [coughs] Do you mind if I suck on a Strepsil?
MD: No. Do you want another cup of coffee?
Interviewer: Yes. Thanks.
MD: The air warfare —
Interviewer: I’ll have the Strepsil after I have the coffee.
MD: The Air Warfare Museum at Lashenden have got a lot of their, you know. They are marvellous people those people at the Air Warfare Museum.
Interviewer: I’ve never heard of it. I’ve rung the RAF Museum.
MD: Oh, you should go over and see them and see the museum. They are absolutely fantastic people.
Interviewer: Where is, where is Lashenden?
MD: Around the other side of Maidstone. If you want to go in the bathroom it’s just on the right.
Interviewer: No. I’m fine.
[pause]
MD: Well, I think that one’s a good one. The sergeant escaper one because there is Cyril Aynsley on it. There’s Ron Mogg on it. Cal’s on it, I think. Graham Hall is not on it. I’m sure he is not on that.
Interviewer: I think Graham —
MD: Well, he hadn’t, Jimmy hadn’t much time for him actually.
Interviewer: Didn’t? No, it’s —
MD: No. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and he hadn’t got much time for Graham at all.
Interviewer: Well, I’ll have to get around this somehow [unclear]
MD: Because apparently Graham’s wife she was the one that ran his business you know while he was away. She ran the kodak business. Graham really wasn’t anything much in it at all. She was the one.
Interviewer: He kept talking about her as being wined and dined at one of the Oxford colleges. She, according, there was a piece in the, “Telegraph,” last October which I’ve just managed to get. Cal, Cal remembered there had been something but he thought it was only a couple of months and I couldn’t find it. I managed to get it off the internet and it was apparently he was hopeless at putting punctuation. This was the story as it was told. He never put punctuation in the letters and they were, he would give his letters to her for her to put the punctuation in and correct it. And he, one of them said it would be really useful if you were ever shot down because whenever you see punctuation you know the next word is important and so that was the first code before they started using the dictionary. Apparently it was just you know whenever there was a full stop or a comma or whatever the next word had to be read so you would just read those words through the letter which is quite clever.
MD: Because you know when they wrote to me and said that I didn’t know there was a code in anything. I didn’t know anything about it and the War Office wrote to me and said that if I got a letter [pause] Now, was it if I got a letter with a red tick on it or if it hadn’t? Yes. If I got a letter with a red tick. Oh, that’s probably why I haven’t got them. If I got a letter with a red tick on it I had to go to the police station and let them see it. And I went to the Harrogate Police Station. They didn’t even want to know. They couldn’t have cared less. When my uncle who heard Lord Haw Haw on the radio say he was a prisoner of war and I went through Jimmy’s letters with a small tooth comb but we couldn’t fiddle anything out of them. Nothing at all. We’d no idea. But he never ever told me what the code was when he came back. Ever.
Interviewer: Are you curious to know or are you not bothered now?
MD: Not really. It was all, you know I don’t think I was even that curious then to that extent.
Interviewer: According to the obituary in the [pause] in, “The Times,” I can’t find out who wrote it unfortunately. I know Cal did the one in, “The Telegraph,” but the one in, “The Times,” claims that they sent back quite important information on the V-2 rockets which obviously were very important over here because they were doing a lot of damage at the end of the war and also completely tells of the specifications of a new, the new Tiger tank. I asked Graham, I mean maybe I can’t rely on him but he did say, ‘No. we were asked by the Air Ministry to get, to get this, or the Ministry of Defence and we got it through the Polish Resistance. The French Resistance.
MD: I don’t know.
Interviewer: It’s quite extraordinary to be able to do that from within captivity in Germany.
MD: Mind you they did do some amazing things. And also Henry Soderberg. I don’t know what he says on that tape quite honestly because I haven’t played it for years but he probably could tell you quite a lot of things if you could get in touch with him.
Interviewer: I could try. I’ll try and do that.
MD: I don’t know that I’ve got his address now.
Interviewer: How [pause] Dixie’s French and German was supposed to be pretty —
MD: His German was very good. He taught himself.
Interviewer: Did he?
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: Before the war?
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: Why? Did, he didn’t have presumably if he was —
MD: I think funnily enough we were very friendly with some people in Batley called Crosslands. They’re both dead but the children are still alive. Sheila and Ian and funnily enough Ian has got multiple sclerosis and I because lots of people have said multiple sclerosis you can catch it from other people, I’m damned sure you can’t but you sometimes wonder and Jimmy went to Germany. That’s where he met the Crosslands. When he went to Germany and they saw Hitler then when they went. They went to a rally that Hitler was at.
Interviewer: When was this?
MD: 1936.
Interviewer: And was he there just on a holiday?
MD: He was there on holiday. Yeah. But I think he always had the feeling that there was going to be a war just as Mr Crossland did.
Interviewer: It’s quite interesting because one of the [coughs] one of the books, I can’t remember which one said that after when he was shot down and got to the camp that he put up the calendar going through to I think it was —
MD: Yes, he did.
Interviewer: May 1945.
MD: Yeah, he did.
Interviewer: Which sounds extraordinary because everybody was always trying to convince themselves it was over by next Christmas.
MD: No. He did. He made a calendar for ’45.
Interviewer: Did you ever hear why? He just, he just thought that was how long it —
MD: I think he just thought that was how long it was going to last. It would last as long as that. Yeah.
Interviewer: I still can’t, I still don’t know how I’m going to tell this story. What I’m going to do is keep reading and —
MD: Well, I don’t know. I think it’s a difficult story to tell really. I think this is why it has never been told properly. I mean, I can’t understand why somebody didn’t do it years ago.
Interviewer: Well, I know. I know a little, a man, a writer called Charles Wood who was in the Tank Corps and has specialised over the years in writing things about war from the sort of common soldier. A soldier’s point of view and we corresponded recently on the internet and he said, ‘I’m surprised you’ve mentioned Dixie because I once wanted to do something about this. We were even trying to talk to John Thaw about playing Dixie.’ And he said he felt, I think he did something on Bomber Harris once and they were hoping to do it after that but he’s the first person you know that I’ve spoken to outside this circle of the ex-POWs who really knows much about him apart from people who specialise in knowing about the period. I just never heard the story before. I don’t know if I told you how I got to hear about it but I went, I used to work in the City a long time ago and didn’t really enjoy it and left and went to work with the BBC. I used to be a financial journalist and got very bored and I had lunch with an old friend and he knew I was writing films and he just said, ‘I cut this out in the Times. It’s always fascinated me. Do you think there’s a story there?’ I read it and it was just such an interesting [pause] So different to all the movies you ever did see in, you know the ‘50s and ‘60s.
MD: Oh yes.
Interviewer: From that period and very different to, “The Great Escape,” which I always think’s an overrated film. So it might not be. It might not be an easy story to tell but I’m sure there is a way to do it but it will be by leaving something, it will be by leaving things out. Either you concentrate on the last two years where they go from things being, I mean they can’t get out but they are reasonably comfortable with the Red Cross parcels and support.
MD: That’s right. Yes.
Interviewer: To suddenly being, you know, becoming malnourished and the march or you find a way to go through the war. I can’t decide for instance whether [pause] whether I should be having you in it as well or not.
MD: Oh no. I don’t think you should.
Interviewer: Well, that’s because you’re modest.
MD: It’s better to leave it to them. For them you know.
Interviewer: But it’s quite, you see the story about you going to the Harrogate Police Station.
MD: Oh, I see what you mean.
Interviewer: Is quite, it’s quite interesting.
MD: Yes.
Interviewer: I had thought before that maybe it was better just being left in the camps. It must have been an horrendous job, Dixie’s. I mean what does he get? One time according to one of the books, I know they’re not all reliable he was getting four divorce petitions a week.
MD: Oh yes. What did they call them? I’ve forgotten. They had —
Interviewer: The [Mess-pots] were the letters. That’s the letter from people saying I’ve found somebody else. Usually, ‘’m having a baby with somebody else. I know you’ll be happy for me.’ They were called [Mess-pots] because —
MD: But he never talked about that when he came home you see. Not to me ever. I mean I only ever learned anything about what happened in the camp from when he was talking to other people and other people were asking him. I mean if, I think if I’d have asked him he still wouldn’t have told me. Just said he didn’t want to talk about it. But when they got together with a load of POWs then he would. I mean there’s lots of Canadians that could tell you lots of things. I mean, but then I think they put him on a pedestal too much really.
Interviewer: Well, I think it’s obvious that he needed something in the last few months sound to have been absolutely appalling but there are lots of funny stories as well.
MD: Oh yes. I think there’s lots. I mean lots of things that happened to Bristow but then you see Daphne wasn’t married to him when he was shot down. They got married after the war. I don’t know that she would be able to tell you anything much. I don’t know whether John did talk to her or not. But I shouldn’t think he did actually because John always brushed everything aside after the war.
Interviewer: And he ran an electrical business in the end did he?
MD: Yes. Oh, he was, the sons still do it. It’s [pause] Durati Radios.
Interviewer: What’s it called?
MD: Durati Radios. Is it Camberwell Green? Yes. Yes,. His sons run that radio shop. I mean John was hilarious. I mean he built a swimming pool and don’t you tell anybody he built this swimming pool and because they wanted to test it he fixed the electrics up to the streetlights [laughs] He also couldn’t get a telephone and in one place he lived in and the bloke upstairs had got a telephone and he managed to make it so that they could both use it [laughs] I mean John could do all sorts of things like that and he used to laugh like anything. He thought it was funny because he was the one when the stage blew up didn’t it? The record —
Interviewer: Yes, he fixed the bomb.
MD: He fixed the bomb. Yes. And he’d do any dirty job to go out and buy things you know. Find things that he could use just as didn’t he get something out of a car when they —
Interviewer: Yes. Yes. I can’t remember it but yes they took something out. Yes.
MD: Yeah. He took something out of a car. Yes.
Interviewer: I think the ones that have got to be there are Dixie, Ron Mogg, probably Sir Aynsley, Bristow, Grimson.
MD: Ron Grimson. Yes. I don’t know the story.
Interviewer: And the rest I think probably I’ll [pause] I’m going to use, “No Flight from the Cage,” as a sort of template so I’ll speak to Cal. Cal of course because he’s written quite a few books and understand the problems I’ve got quite a lot. It’s nice talking to him.
MD: Oh yes.
Interviewer: He suggested well maybe, you know make-up a fictitious Combine that can be the actual means of the standard POW. I think that’s probably better than trying to work out you know exactly how Cal and his friends behaved. There’s more of a risk I think of upsetting —
MD: Because you heard the story of them taking him out for a walk on his birthday. Jimmy.
Interviewer: Oh, was that the one where he said, ‘Yes. I’d love to go but only if it takes —
MD: ‘For God’s sake get me out of this place.’
Interviewer: Oh right.
MD: And it was his, it happened to be his birthday. I don’t know what had all gone wrong and the commandant let him go out for a walk, him and Ron Mogg and didn’t they find some eggs or something?
Interviewer: I don’t think I’ve heard that.
MD: Oh well. It might be on this sergeant escapers tape. I don’t know. But yes. It was his birthday. The 25th of January and I don’t know what had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong and he said to the commandant, ‘For God’s sake get me out of this place.’ And he said he could go for a walk and he said he didn’t want to go for a walk unless somebody went with him and I think they let Mogg go with him and a guard of course. Because when he went through the lines to get help they offered him to be able to come home and he wouldn’t.
Interviewer: I know. Yes.
MD: It was our wedding anniversary. I could have killed him I’ll tell you.
Interviewer: He wouldn’t have got back that same day though would he?
MD: No, I don’t suppose he would [laughs] no. No. But he said he had to go back. He couldn’t.
Interviewer: No. I think that’s quite important.
MD: But an Australian came to see me and he’s still alive. He was one of the first ones to come home and he came to see, [pause] oh, what did they call him? [pause] I’d have to go through the address book.
Interviewer: When he came back did you get to see him straightaway or did they keep in hospital before you were able to —
MD: No, I met him off the train in Harrogate.
Interviewer: This was before the hospital.
MD: Yes. Yes, he went into hospital about a week after he came home. Yeah. I met him one night off the train. George Kirk. That’s his name. Yeah. He came back because he came back and he told me that Jimmy was walking to God knows where with a column. But I don’t know whether he was right or not. He was the glamour boy. He was a blonde young bloke. I think he was in, when they had anything on he was played the part of a woman. But he lived in Australia.
Interviewer: Graham Hall claimed that when, when Grimson first came to him and he said, ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got to get out of this room.’ Because he’d fallen in love with the guy in the bunk next door.
MD: Oh, I never heard of that. I never heard any of those stories. What, Grimson had?
Interviewer: Yeah.
MD: Oh, well Jimmy never told me. I never —
Interviewer: Cal says there was surprising really if there was none of that stuff going on.
MD: I’m quite sure I’d have heard them talking about it between themselves and I never did. Never heard anything like that but then Graham always got a terrific imagination. I’m sorry. I’ve got no time for him.
Interviewer: No. That, that’s fine. You know. He’s been, he’s been helpful and —
MD: I think he might be helpful to you but as I say I’ve got no time for him because Graham Hall is all for Graham Hall.
Interviewer: Well, that’s fine because I got very worried because after the conversation I had the other day I thought you know this has just complicated it too much. It’s no longer you know a straight story. But that’s fine. I’ve spoken to a couple of people afterwards and know that he —
MD: Because they said he’d gone peculiar since his wife died. Disappeared and nobody knew where he was. Alfie told me because I said to him something about Graham because he told —
Interviewer: I thought he might have a girlfriend or something.
MD: Yeah. He says he thinks somebody said he’d got a woman or something. I said, ‘Well, they’re welcome to him. Anybody [laughs] because if ever I go to a dinner I said, ‘Oh please don’t sit me near Graham Hall.’
Interviewer: Did they ever, I mean I know lots there was lots of instances, friendly, it’s an awful phrase, friendly fire during the war and there’s a guy down our road who was a brigadier or something he got shot up by Americans fifteen miles inside their own lines he said.
MD: Well, you know they bombed our blokes.
Interviewer: Bodies everywhere. Well, yes that’s obviously an important bit of the story and it —
MD: That’s the bit that really upset Jimmy that.
Interviewer: Well, I’m [pause] the way I’ve been seeing the story is that is having Jimmy as a man who doesn’t want to lose anybody unnecessarily.
MD: No.
Interviewer: Especially after, “The Great Escape.” I just —
MD: You see they were all older prisoners that got killed on that march. Blokes that had been there four years, five years. Not young ones. And it was our planes that did it.
Interviewer: I know. Did anything happen, and presumably I mean these sort of things did happen unfortunately horrendous though they are.
MD: Well, they still do don’t they?
Interviewer: But did, there was no attempt after the war to find out who it was. They just —
MD: I don’t think so.
Interviewer: Just one of those things.
MD: No.
Interviewer: I think one of the books said that they, you know they were Canadian. I think it was Vic Gammon’s book, “Not All Glory,” I think. Somebody was complaining as they were just about to go back to England that they’d been shot up. You know talking to a wing commander and he said where was it? This guy went white and he said he was leading the flight.
MD: Yeah. That’s awful.
Interviewer: No. It’s a horrible story.
MD: Yeah.
Interviewer: Well, look. I’ve probably taken up enough of your —
MD: That’s alright. I don’t think I’ve been very helpful anyway.
Interviewer: You have been staggeringly helpful.
MD: I mean because I really can’t tell you —