Interview with Calton Younger
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Interview with Calton Younger
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Calton Younger discussed his experiences as a prisoner of war with a producer who was hoping to make a film about the life of Dixie Deans.
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00:43:49 audio recording
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This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
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AYoungerC9803130002
Transcription
CY: GB Shaw went into a bookshop and found a book he had given a friend and it was inscribed to whoever it was, “With the compliments of GBS,” and he bought it and added, “With the renewed compliments of GBS,” and sent that out.
Interviewer: Let’s try that. Can you, it’s pretty artificial but if you say something then I can just tell if I can hear it or not.
CY: Something that I can just —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: How much I enjoyed this book. I’ll probably enjoy it less next time because if we get any further then its sort, its work reading rather than a pleasure book.
CY: I’m glad you did. I think it’s different from most of them.
Interviewer: I had what I think is a good idea of the way to end the thing though it’s terribly, perhaps a little bit sentimental and umpteen things in my first movie have been changed but it struck me that it was inspired by you reminding me of the citation for the MBE, “And loved by all,” and how unusual it was was actually up seeing if we could get various people who had come into contact with Dixie to actually do, you know just to say something about him so as we actually see the credits roll we can hear people talking.
CY: Quite an idea.
Interviewer: It seemed like rather a nice —
CY: One of the nurses at the — hello —
[background chat with a little girl who has entered the room]
Interviewer: I mean as you know from our first correspondence the chances are one’s going to have to change some things but I can’t really see that it needs to change that much. And I can’t, I think a straight narrative starting off in Stalag 1 and sort of going through and following is is probably a little bit dull so, I’ve got to find ways of doing, doing that and noting the passing of time. But I think one of the things that they were saying they really want to get over seeing me do it is the difference between natural authority and authority that is conferred by a group of bureaucrats.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Why did they not recognise —
CY: Yes. You asked me what word he said and I said probably kriegies but thinking about it I’m sure what he said was parade. Yeah.
Interviewer: But it seems that although this would be changing the facts that’s quite a good moment for relatively early in the film. One problem is you are almost putting the RSM [Turner] slightly early but if we had another slightly more senior man who was a less natural leader.
CY: I think that time was in fact when we were informed of the officer’s being shot after the, ‘Great Escape.’
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: If I remember rightly.
Interviewer: So I was wondering if maybe we had a slightly less effectual leader who didn’t seem to be doing anything and Dixie could recognise that things were getting heavy that in a sense by him sort of standing forward and saying one word that’s a more interesting movie moment and seems to explain to an audience better that he was a natural leader than necessarily having the straightforward vote. You could then almost have the votes. I don’t know how the votes were done but I mean I was thinking —
CY: They could use maybe a bit obvious I suppose almost as the last words the Australian soldier when he, when Dixie came back having bicycled through the lines and came back in a Mercedes.
Interviewer: He said, ‘I’ve seen it all. He turned his bike in to a —
CY: ‘Turned a bloody bicycle [laughs] into a Mercedes Benz.’ Yeah.
Interviewer: It, I mean it is going to be a question of what, what has to be left out. I think there seems to be no way of including the really bad forced marches. The winter ones that, because somehow it detracts from the last one however horrendous they were.
CY: You could probably show it a bit because a lot of them marched into Fallingbostel.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: And so maybe that. They could be shown going to Fallingbostel and being welcomed by Dixie. Something like that.
Interviewer: It’s quite scary how much in tune you are in this because that is exactly, that’s all I could think of doing. That.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: The other big thing I suppose that happened in another, really in another camp is what I believe the Americans called the Heydekrug run. Was it the Heydekrug one or was it the other one? The one with the bayonets and the dogs.
CY: No. Hang on.
Interviewer: It was Heydekrug wasn’t it?
CY: It was called the, the run up the road it was called.
Interviewer: Yes. The run up the road.
CY: The run up the road. That was at [unclear]
Interviewer: But I can’t quite see that if that happened when Dixie had been around that he necessarily, what he would have done but —
CY: There would have been ructions. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So that might be the one major thing I might try. Whether we start in Stalag Luft 3 and move to six and then on to Fallingbostel I don’t, I don’t know. I mean the transfers themselves are quite interesting. There’s a sneaky little part of me that wants to have just somebody in the background in Stalag Luft 3 who’s got a baseball that he is throwing it against the side of the, the the wall like Steve McQueen did in the film.
CY: I was going to say that’s pinching it isn’t it?
Interviewer: Well, exactly. It’s just so that people who were aware would know but for the most part —
CY: Of course, there were, there were lots of baseballs thrown around. I just thought I don’t suppose you’ve seen a book of cartoons called, “Handle With Care.”
Interviewer: I don’t think so.
CY: I have a horrible feeling I leant mine to an American and he didn’t send it back but —
Interviewer: I’ll be able to get almost anything through the library system.
CY: I doubt if you’d get that.
Interviewer: No.
CY: But I’ll tell you what I did photocopy, actually some of them were used in Vic’s book and probably yes you don’t need to get it. They are the ones that, they are the good ones. The ones that really give you an idea of what the camp looked like. Especially the birds eye view. One of the whole camp at Heydekrug and he’s actually got the little men throwing baseballs.
Interviewer: Presumably in the American compound rather than the —
CY: No. That wasn’t the Americans. No.
Interviewer: No.
CY: Because we had Canadians, you know.
Interviewer: Oh, of course.
CY: Lots of them.
Interviewer: I re-watched Stalag 17 the other day just out of interest and it seemed less savage and more comical than I remember it from the first time. It is an enjoyable movie but it’s not the tone necessarily that I would be aiming for. I think if we wanted to make something with this drama but with light moments.
CY: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: I mean I was explaining the story about I can’t remember who it was who went out after befriending one of the guard dogs.
CY: Joe, yes.
Interviewer: The dog for instance. I mean it’s a lovely little story but I am just going to do one sheet or maybe two sheets because I find it very difficult to keep things concise just to tell them roughly how the story goes.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: But I think it would probably be with Dixie coming back after the bombing, his penultimate bombing raid over Berlin to be told apparently he had to fly again the same day and I can’t remember it was Vic Gammon’s book but something I’ve got upstairs says this was going to be his twenty fifth.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: And he was very tired but for some, I can’t remember the reason given now that he had to go again. I think he was more experienced than others.
CY: It’s probably, it’s probably in Vic Gammon’s book —
Interviewer: Yeah.
CY: I would think. Possibly [pause] I don’t think it’s in, “No Flight —”
Interviewer: No. I don’t think so. I think it’s in Vic Gammon’s.
CY: I think it is.
Interviewer: But he was asked or presumably told I suppose rather than asked to —
CY: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: To go out again.
CY: Yeah. Yes, I can remember doing two in a day.
Interviewer: I mean I find it hard enough just keeping awake driving my wife and family up to Sheffield up the motorway.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Presumably it was cold so that must have helped a little.
CY: Yes. I always stayed cold deliberately. I never wore the [pause] I don’t think I even wore a pullover. I certainly never wore the Irvin jacket. I had it in case the heating broke down but —
Interviewer: Right.
CY: But I always liked to be a bit cold. I still do when I’m driving.
Interviewer: You still do.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Oh right. But unfortunately the rest of the family don’t necessarily.
CY: No. That’s the trouble. My wife likes it pretty warm.
Interviewer: There are cars in America now I know where you can have separate heating controls.
CY: Oh, that’s a good idea.
Interviewer: Both sides.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Dixie, do you remember, Dixie got his plane down didn’t he? He didn’t bale out. So, I think, I think he saved his, I think everyone of the crew was alright in that.
CY: I’m not, well I can easily check that.
Interviewer: I mean, you know, I’ve read this and forgotten.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I’m sure I’ve got it upstairs but would you have, would the crew have stayed together? Would he have been with the same men that he started out with then or did people not tend to?
CY: Well, it varied a bit. I had the same crew. Well, I only did thirteen ops anyway. I had. I stayed with the same crew except on one occasion a couple of them [pause] that was interesting too because we, we were supposed to go on six day leave after duty on a certain day and we were sent off on ops to Hamburg. No, not to Hamburg. To Essen. And by the time we got back it was about six in the morning.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: And a couple of the crew reckoned that they were due an extra day so they took it and the day the rest of us got back we went to Hamburg. The irony is that the rear gunner had been transferred to our squadron because he was Australian and they were building up the 460 Squadron and he had already done a lot of ops and if he had gone on that Hamburg raid he’d have finished his tour before we got shot down. He would have finished it on the previous tour.
Interviewer: Serves him right.
CY: Still he might, he mightn’t have survived if he had.
Interviewer: Would, if I’m right in thinking that Dixie’s plane that he got, I’m pretty sure he got the plane down, I don’t remember hearing that anybody died that time would they have then stayed together in —
CY: In the camps. Probably. I know, I know Ginger Parkes was one of his crew and he was with him all the time. But he, the odds are that the crew would have done although occasionally somebody would take a transfer somewhere else.
Interviewer: Just as you probably know almost every movie whoever was at the centre of it has to have somebody that is sort of, that is with him the whole time as his buddy so that he can explain what’s happening.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: So it’s —
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I mean if that’s feasible.
CY: But even, even if it, there were people closer to him than probably his crew were in Germany. Unfortunately, as I told you I think they’re all gone except possibly Joe [Hanslip.] Did I bring my address book? I mean my Association —
Interviewer: I still can’t decide whether to make many of the other people true or not. I think by and large probably if whatever they do reflects well upon them.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: You may as well stick with real people. Somebody you’re putting in who perhaps wouldn’t necessarily [unclear] what you’ve done then it is probably better just to invent them.
CY: Yes. People like Bristow.
Interviewer: Bristow would have to be in.
CY: And Grimson and Ron Mogg. Cyril Aynsley. They’d all stand up to scrutiny so to speak.
Interviewer: We will also probably need some ordinary Joe’s. People who were not part of that group.
CY: Oh, yes. You would.
Interviewer: I think if Dixie is sort of seen by everybody as being a complete hero and a god the entire way through that gets a little bit dull so I sort of imagine that one has sort of one airman who doesn’t particularly want to participate in whatever is going on. Who can’t see why people are [unclear]
CY: Oh, there probably were. I can —
Interviewer: I’m sure you mentioned one or two who were sort of you know didn’t bring a lot or give a lot or bother with anybody else. Then you could show that eventually this person too is won over by this. It seems terribly trite when you say it like that but if you, if somehow the audience sees it through this chap’s eyes I think it would make it. Do you see what I’m getting at? If Dixie is seen by absolutely everybody as wonderful from the start to the finish it’s probably a duller picture.
CY: Yeah. Trouble was they did.
Interviewer: I know. I know.
CY: But yeah, there were disgruntled people and I’ve no doubt some of them —
Interviewer: Well, I think part of disgruntlement is obviously assuaged during that bit where the Tally-ho Committee actually reveal to the room leaders what they’ve actually been spending all the stuff on.
CY: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Which is a wonderful scene and the two bursting in in uniform.
CY: Yes. Grimson and Morris. Yes. Morris is still alive as far as I know. He lives in South Africa. I thought I had my POW address book which is most unusual that I haven’t. I just can’t believe it.
Interviewer: Don’t worry. Perhaps, perhaps I should just jot down the odd name and then —
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: When are you off? Is it next week or the week —
CY: Wednesday. Yeah. Next Wednesday but I can easily phone you with any names you want.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: And Dixie. I’ll look him up in, “Bomber Command Losses.” See what actually happened although I’m sure you’ve got it in Vic’s book. But I’ll check it.
Interviewer: I have it. I have it.
CY: “Bomber Command Losses,” is a fascinating series done by a chap named Bill Chorley and he does a volume a year. Well, ’39/40 he combined in one. Quite a slim volume. And gets up to ’43 and it’s that thick and it covers every crew and what happened to them.
Interviewer: Extraordinary amount of work. I picked up this in a second-hand bookshop yesterday just really to give me a bit of background work. It might not be the best book on Bomber Command.
CY: One of Dennis Richards. Yeah.
Interviewer: It just looked quite interesting.
CY: Oh, this. Yeah. Don Charlwood. Funnily enough I haven’t, I haven’t read it but the original came out the same day as, “No Flight —” in 1956 and I’m hoping to go and see him when I’m in Australia. He’s another Aussie. Yes. He’s written quite a bit now. Yeah. Copyright 1956.
Interviewer: Yeah. How long were the, was an op to Berlin?
CY: In those days oh it must have in Wellingtons or Whitleys it would be seven or, seven —
Interviewer: The Whitley was one of Dixie’s wasn’t it?
CY: He was a Whitley. That’s right. Probably a good seven/eight hours. Maybe nine. It would probably be nine hours I think. If I remember they had to put extra tanks. Extra fuel tanks on and reduce the bomb load a bit.
Interviewer: That’s, I thought I knew all but I don’t think I’d ever heard of a Whitley bomber before. And what happened at the end of the tour which you say it was originally thirty missions. Did you actually go and then you got a bit of a rest because I think, I think you were saying only three out of two hundred got through two tours.
CY: Yes, that’s right. They were, well mostly they went on instructor’s jobs in OTUs. Operational Training Units. That would be the norm. Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you actually, you actually want to complete a tour or were you [unclear]
CY: Oh, I should think most people would like to finish a tour.
Interviewer: It must have been —
CY: Cheshire did three. Three tours.
Interviewer: [unclear] if it had been me I’m not sure I’d have been too eager to get in at all so —
CY: But a lot were pulled out. Maybe halfway through a second tour they’d say you’ve done enough and —
Interviewer: What did it actually mean to finish an op because according to Vic Gammon’s book I think this was his twenty fifth op and I just think well maybe I should make it the last one of the tour but does that mean you then get leave for a week or something and that was something to look forward to.
CY: You were supposed to get leave subject to conditions of course six days in every six weeks. You’d go but you could always be hauled back and I think [pause] no, it is probably in the second of Vic’s books there’s actually a piece about Harris trying to push people to have their leave in the winter and [laughs] and not have it in the summer which was pretty rough because you really needed the break.
Interviewer: I was just trying to get straight in my own mind what it meant to finish a tour.
CY: Finish your tour? Well, it would certainly be —
Interviewer: Apart from the fact it was —
CY: I don’t know in a way because I was on a new squadron and nobody finished their tour before I was shot down.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: So I never actually saw the joy unconfined.
Interviewer: [unclear] one of those.
CY: I’m sure you can.
Interviewer: Were you, were fighter, fighter pilots and bomber crews I presume you had separate airfields for bombers.
CY: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And fighters.
CY: Yes, and mostly the fighters were mostly along the south and up the east coast. Not too far. Sort of up to Essex. I don’t think there were many other fighter stations but bombers were further north. They were in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Yorkshire mostly.
Interviewer: And the camps presumably had fighter pilots just the same as bomber crews. Was there any, was there rivalry between them? Did fighter pilots consider themselves somehow better than bomber crew or was it you just all —
CY: Oh, they probably did but people who would have trained together initially. It’s just you didn’t meet them really because they were in one part of the country and you were in another.
Interviewer: No, I was thinking in the camps.
CY: In the camps? Oh no. No. Most of the time you didn’t know what people had been or if you did you’d forgotten.
Interviewer: Your certificate from Oxford. Was that part of their exam? I mean was it the same as getting a BA or was it sort of —
CY: Well —
Interviewer: I know you got credits towards something else it says on it.
CY: The certificate actually says [pause] something like a standard normally required for university honours. Now, just what that meant I’m not quite sure because when years later I wondered about doing a degree at LSE on an evening basis mostly and after I think 1958 all the old qualifications were extinct as far as the universities were concerned. So they, they told me I would have to do O and A Levels. That kind of thing unless I had a professional qualification of some kind. Now, I worked in a bank in those days. It was my bread and butter. I had no interest in banking although I did quite well funnily enough. I came over here hoping to be a cartoonist in fact. Anyway, when, when I saw that I didn’t want to have to plough through O Levels and the like again so and I hadn’t bothered to take the Banker’s Certificate because the Oxford one I thought was superior. So did the bank incidentally. But when I took it to LSE and they looked at it they said, ‘Well, what do they mean university honours? Write and ask them.’ So I wrote and asked them and the answer came back it means what it says and the LSE wouldn’t take that so I didn’t. I didn’t go on and do the degree. But anyway, I had a novel published at that time and decided right, I’d skip the degree business anyway.
Interviewer: In the camps did you, this will be in “No Flight —” and it will be something I just missed when I’ve gone through but did you, was it compulsory to contribute to the sort of Tally-ho fund?
CY: No.
Interviewer: So it was entirely —
CY: No. It wasn’t. Well, a lot of people didn’t have anything to contribute very much.
Interviewer: Where did they get their —
CY: Well, you know.
Interviewer: Not just presumably from trade.
CY: Sorry, where did they get —?
Interviewer: Where did they get their, I sort of imagine that maybe everybody gave a certain part of every Red Cross parcel that came in to give him a sort of kitty. I was just wondering if —
CY: No. I think it was pretty confined to they traded mostly in cigarettes anyway because the Germans didn’t have them and we did. That was the big situation. That was the irony of it really. I think there probably were some bits of Red Cross parcels because I think we probably, I can’t remember whether we had tea or coffee in them or not. I don’t think we could have done. They probably would have considered that was taking up space without providing much nutrition. I can’t remember that there was any tea or coffee. There might have been. Soap I think was another thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. You mentioned that.
CY: Yeah.
[pause – telephone ringing. Conversation on phone]
CY: You enjoy the Spy caricatures I see.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, when I used to work in the City —
CY: They’re not all —
Interviewer: I got those. I wish I’d got slightly more colourful people than the city ones. [I’ll just write this down while I remember for Jane.]
CY: I had found one of the Marquess of Ailesbury who at one time, this was the Marquess of around about the 1900’s. Well, the Spy era anyway and of course at one time he had owned Great Bedwin and everything around it and so I got that up on the stairs with an old map of the area and the pencil drawing Don Bevan did of me in Germany. Don Bevan being a Stalag 17 man.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. That’s wonderful. Oh, do you know is the, it was originally a play wasn’t it? Stalag 17.
CY: Yes, it was.
Interviewer: Was the play very different to the film?
CY: Well, I didn’t see it.
Interviewer: I wonder if it’s actually just reading the —
CY: He didn’t write it alone. There was somebody else in with him. He was basically an artist although he was also an actor. He used to do I think they called the joint stock companies.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
CY: And he was in that category.
Interviewer: Just going back to, because I can’t work this out in my own mind.
CY: But you see that is so American. “Stalag 17.” Isn’t it?
Interviewer: Oh yes. No. Yes.
CY: I don’t know. I shouldn’t think you’d derive very much knowledge from it.
Interviewer: But there may be interesting instances to take but I suspect —
CY: Yes, you might be able to get something from it.
Interviewer: But instances to make the thing lively would be probably, I’m not sure. Hard to come by.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Even just between your book and Vic Gammon’s. I’m just trying to work out where the, where the Tally-ho Committee got all their funds from because if it was just, if it was just the members of the committee presumably they didn’t have that much to barter in the first place.
CY: Well, I’ll tell you what. Jock Alexander who was the boss of Tally-ho, little known in the camp but he was the man. He might even be there tomorrow but I’ll start taking down things you want [pause – pages turning] in the way of addresses and things. He lives at Weymouth and he was [pause] I think he managed a Marks and Spencer’s store at Weymouth. Anyway, that’s Jock Alexander and Joe [Hanslip] who did, Joe [Hanslip] worked as one of Dixie’s staff. Addresses to Simon.
Interviewer: He had an office I know. I think that’s mentioned in the book did he? What about his quarters? Presumably he wasn’t in a hut in the same way as —
CY: No, he wasn’t. I think he might have shared. I’m not sure if he was on his own or if he was sharing with somebody.
Interviewer: It doesn’t matter too much but in the end these are things that one wants to try and get right I think so it’s reasonably realistically.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: One thing I definitely want to find out at some stage are the lyrics to, “The Bold Aviator,” which crops up in more than, more than one book but nobody ever puts, especially if the books were written a while ago.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: When, you know it wasn’t common to put something so base [laughs] down.
CY: [laughs] Yeah.
Interviewer: I’ve got, I meant to ask if you’d ever come across this and I thought I had a spare copy but I can’t find it. Lord Healey’s son around the time of the VE-Day celebrations they did this all with the original words. So, “Bless them all.”
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Is not quite bless them all anymore. I haven’t re-read the notes but there don’t seem to be any particularly POW ones in there.
CY: No. Well, I don’t think so there were any.
Interviewer: “Come on. Come on chaps,” which is one of them is one of my favourite songs because there are no rude words but the line changes just as it’s about to get [pause] about to get one.
CY: Yes [laughs] yes.
Interviewer: I’ll try and get another one of these and perhaps send it to you. You might enjoy it. It is absolutely fascinating. I’m trying to think what else [pause] one thing you mention in your book you actually refer to homosexuality in it.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: You say but quite a lot but obviously you hardly saw any women for several years and you say you know that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that you knew of.
CY: No.
Interviewer: Though later when the Germans were almost [unclear] looking in between two huts.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: The inference is given that this is because of the sort of homosexuality is —
CY: Yeah. That was because there was so much of it among the Germans and so by hinting that that’s what it was the German he understood alright.
Interviewer: There was. There was among the Germans because one always sort of understands that in prison for instance there is.
CY: Well —
Interviewer: But that’s why I wondered how you could go for four years without —
CY: I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe there was but I make, you know I make the point that you would have had to do it publicly. There really was nowhere anybody could have gone off quietly to hide if you like. It may, may have happened. I don’t know. There were one or two known homosexuals in the camp. There was a chap called Fairy Evans who was a sort of great professional comedian. A very good chap actually and he had quite a story because after the war he was managing a jewellers shop in I think it was Singapore was it? Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. One of them. Somewhere in that area anyway in Southeast Asia and apparently he was the manager of this jeweller’s shop and apparently the staff used to pay themselves at the beginning of the month instead of the end and they got new employers who then charged Fairy anyway, I don’t know about the rest of the staff. They charged him with theft and he went to prison there. Joe [Hanslip] whose name I just said I’d give you —
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Was a Dunlop Rubber representative in those days. His arrival in Singapore or wherever it was was in the papers and he got a telephone call and, ‘Is that you, Joe?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘This is Fairy Evans here.’ ‘Oh, where are you, Fairy?’ ‘Well, as a matter of fact I’m ringing from the Governor’s Office in the jail.’ [laughs] And he was, he was training the inmates for a pantomime in the jail. But anyway he, he came back afterwards and he was a floor walker in I think it was C&As and Peter Thomas’ wife bought something and —
Interviewer: This is Lord Thomas —
CY: Yeah. She died but she was, she’d paid by cheque. This was before cheque cards came in and so the salesperson took it to Fairy Evans to counter sign and he realised who it was and said, ‘I’m not going to sign that. I can’t allow that.’ Of course, Mrs Thomas got very upset and then he said, ‘It’s alright dear. I’m only kidding. I was with your husband in Germany.’ [laughs] And he was all made up and everything. It makes you wonder what the hell Pete had been up to in Germany [laughs]
[recording paused]
CY: “The Dark Side of the Sky.”
Interviewer: Yes. I haven’t managed, I haven’t even tried to track it down.
CY: Right. That was published by Leo Cooper.
Interviewer: Well, that’s interesting. I rang [pause] [unclear] guy. I rang the company very early on and said, ‘Do you have any books on the subject?’ They said, ‘Oh no. No. Nothing like that.
CY: Well, there it is.
Interviewer: Right. I will read that. To be honest what I’m quite looking forward to sitting down and just sitting reading for a little while.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: There’s never the time to do it.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I’m at the stage like in any project —
CY: What —
Interviewer: I’ll probably go to the Imperial War Museum as well and listen to those tapes.
CY: Yeah. What do you do?
Interviewer: Oh, I review movies.
CY: Oh, which movies?
Interviewer: Movies and videos.
CY: Yes. That’s scriptwriting.
Interviewer: Scriptwriting is something I’ve started doing.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I tried doing it when I left college.
CY: So what have you been doing in movies? What —
Interviewer: You mean what have I written or reviewed? I review films every week for the Daily Mirror.
CY: Ah yes.
Interviewer: Films and videos and for different local BBC local radio stations around the country.
CY: Right.
Interviewer: I used to be a stockbroker. Then I became a financial journalist and I’ve been reviewing as part of the job and then I get bored easily. That’s the problem.
CY: Who were you with as a stockbroker?
Interviewer: Phillips and Drew.
CY: Oh, really?
Interviewer: Who have ceased completely to exist.
CY: Yes, absolutely.
Interviewer: A lot of people I know or used to know lost their jobs in the last few weeks.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I was a financial journalist for the BBC for a while and I wrote a column for, “Punch,” for about eight and a half years until [unclear] Prosser who is the [unclear]member of the [unclear] company and when Punch closed I got very bored as a financial journalism because I had no aptitude for trying to be at all creative.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: So I started reviewing movies and I’ve been with the Mirror [unclear] myself I suppose for about three and a half years and if one particular [laughs] one particular actor rings us to say that he will do this movie then we start filming this summer. This will be my first.
CY: Yes. Because I saw Roy Dotrice’s very first performance on stage.
Interviewer: He was one of the ladies. Is that right?
CY: Yes, he doesn’t let on about that in any of his biographies.
Interviewer: Another thing that occurred to me is that is difficult to do but perhaps at the end credits the people you’ve actually have seen during the film is to sort of show them again and say what they went on to do.
CY: Oh yes.
Interviewer: The logistics of that are so complicated.
CY: Yes. But I think anyway it would probably be too British. You probably have to do what they did in the Great Escape and introduce fictional characters like Steve McQueen on his motorbike.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Because there weren’t any Americans in the Great Escape.
Interviewer: No.
CY: Not one.
Interviewer: There were, wasn’t there a Norwegian and a —
CY: Yes. There were Norwegians.
Interviewer: Dutch or something.
CY: The Norwegian got home. In fact, I think the three who got home I think were all [pause] they were all non-British.
Interviewer: There was either two Norwegian and a Belgian or —
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Two Belgians and a Norwegian. Yes.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I don’t think we’ll have to make up as many things as they did. There were some Americans presumably on the march were there not? Because by that stage different groups had come together.
CY: Yeah. But by this, by that time I think all the Americans were in their own camps.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: We had an American compound at Heydekrug but there wasn’t any real, there was trading across the wire by throwing things across but the, there was no real contact.
Interviewer: Which is odd because just quickly flitting through the MI9 book, the Foot and Langley book and it was talking about you know there was contact between the two bits.
CY: Well, when the Americans first started coming in we were all together but then they hoiked them out to their own camps. Whether there were any left in some of the other camps I don’t know and even —
Interviewer: I don’t —
CY: Even at Stalag Luft 3 they had their own quite separate camp. In fact, I remember somebody who went and lived in America and saw there was a Stalag Luft 3 reunion so he went and they wouldn’t believe that any Brits had been at Stalag Luft 3. Because Stalag Luft 3 in the end was various camps. It was a huge camp.
Interviewer: There was a documentary on it a few days ago on the History Channel which I’ve now got the tape of which has the true story behind the Great Escape. I think you might be interested to watch because it’s got Stalag Luft 3 in it. And also an interesting one, “Escape from Arizona,” when twenty five members of the Germans, there were thousands of Germans were held with the Axis held prisoner in America.
CY: That’s right.
Interviewer: They let twenty five out.
CY: And in Canada.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, the best story I’ve come across recently that you may, you probably have heard everything but just again just quickly flicking through the MI9 book which I haven’t looked at properly one of the shortest runs, home runs was believed to be this guy who had gone to the Savoy and met this girl that he just liked so much they decided to get engaged that night and agreed to meet her a week later to celebrate. He flew over Northern France on a Monday, got shot down. The first time he parachuted he got impaled on a greenhouse. The gardener was a member of the Resistance and hid him away but the Count who owned the chateau saw him trying to clear away the parachute and the Count then invited the airman into the chateau where he rested for two days. He was woken in the middle of the night, taken back by SOE and kept his date with the girl the following Saturday who he eventually married.
CY: Oh right.
Interviewer: SOE sent him, they sent him to Scotland for a while to get out of the way in case he knew anything. That’s a lovely story.
CY: Well, I had a most extraordinary experience because I got away for eight days as you know —
Interviewer: Let’s try that. Can you, it’s pretty artificial but if you say something then I can just tell if I can hear it or not.
CY: Something that I can just —
[recording paused]
Interviewer: How much I enjoyed this book. I’ll probably enjoy it less next time because if we get any further then its sort, its work reading rather than a pleasure book.
CY: I’m glad you did. I think it’s different from most of them.
Interviewer: I had what I think is a good idea of the way to end the thing though it’s terribly, perhaps a little bit sentimental and umpteen things in my first movie have been changed but it struck me that it was inspired by you reminding me of the citation for the MBE, “And loved by all,” and how unusual it was was actually up seeing if we could get various people who had come into contact with Dixie to actually do, you know just to say something about him so as we actually see the credits roll we can hear people talking.
CY: Quite an idea.
Interviewer: It seemed like rather a nice —
CY: One of the nurses at the — hello —
[background chat with a little girl who has entered the room]
Interviewer: I mean as you know from our first correspondence the chances are one’s going to have to change some things but I can’t really see that it needs to change that much. And I can’t, I think a straight narrative starting off in Stalag 1 and sort of going through and following is is probably a little bit dull so, I’ve got to find ways of doing, doing that and noting the passing of time. But I think one of the things that they were saying they really want to get over seeing me do it is the difference between natural authority and authority that is conferred by a group of bureaucrats.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Why did they not recognise —
CY: Yes. You asked me what word he said and I said probably kriegies but thinking about it I’m sure what he said was parade. Yeah.
Interviewer: But it seems that although this would be changing the facts that’s quite a good moment for relatively early in the film. One problem is you are almost putting the RSM [Turner] slightly early but if we had another slightly more senior man who was a less natural leader.
CY: I think that time was in fact when we were informed of the officer’s being shot after the, ‘Great Escape.’
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: If I remember rightly.
Interviewer: So I was wondering if maybe we had a slightly less effectual leader who didn’t seem to be doing anything and Dixie could recognise that things were getting heavy that in a sense by him sort of standing forward and saying one word that’s a more interesting movie moment and seems to explain to an audience better that he was a natural leader than necessarily having the straightforward vote. You could then almost have the votes. I don’t know how the votes were done but I mean I was thinking —
CY: They could use maybe a bit obvious I suppose almost as the last words the Australian soldier when he, when Dixie came back having bicycled through the lines and came back in a Mercedes.
Interviewer: He said, ‘I’ve seen it all. He turned his bike in to a —
CY: ‘Turned a bloody bicycle [laughs] into a Mercedes Benz.’ Yeah.
Interviewer: It, I mean it is going to be a question of what, what has to be left out. I think there seems to be no way of including the really bad forced marches. The winter ones that, because somehow it detracts from the last one however horrendous they were.
CY: You could probably show it a bit because a lot of them marched into Fallingbostel.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: And so maybe that. They could be shown going to Fallingbostel and being welcomed by Dixie. Something like that.
Interviewer: It’s quite scary how much in tune you are in this because that is exactly, that’s all I could think of doing. That.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: The other big thing I suppose that happened in another, really in another camp is what I believe the Americans called the Heydekrug run. Was it the Heydekrug one or was it the other one? The one with the bayonets and the dogs.
CY: No. Hang on.
Interviewer: It was Heydekrug wasn’t it?
CY: It was called the, the run up the road it was called.
Interviewer: Yes. The run up the road.
CY: The run up the road. That was at [unclear]
Interviewer: But I can’t quite see that if that happened when Dixie had been around that he necessarily, what he would have done but —
CY: There would have been ructions. Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So that might be the one major thing I might try. Whether we start in Stalag Luft 3 and move to six and then on to Fallingbostel I don’t, I don’t know. I mean the transfers themselves are quite interesting. There’s a sneaky little part of me that wants to have just somebody in the background in Stalag Luft 3 who’s got a baseball that he is throwing it against the side of the, the the wall like Steve McQueen did in the film.
CY: I was going to say that’s pinching it isn’t it?
Interviewer: Well, exactly. It’s just so that people who were aware would know but for the most part —
CY: Of course, there were, there were lots of baseballs thrown around. I just thought I don’t suppose you’ve seen a book of cartoons called, “Handle With Care.”
Interviewer: I don’t think so.
CY: I have a horrible feeling I leant mine to an American and he didn’t send it back but —
Interviewer: I’ll be able to get almost anything through the library system.
CY: I doubt if you’d get that.
Interviewer: No.
CY: But I’ll tell you what I did photocopy, actually some of them were used in Vic’s book and probably yes you don’t need to get it. They are the ones that, they are the good ones. The ones that really give you an idea of what the camp looked like. Especially the birds eye view. One of the whole camp at Heydekrug and he’s actually got the little men throwing baseballs.
Interviewer: Presumably in the American compound rather than the —
CY: No. That wasn’t the Americans. No.
Interviewer: No.
CY: Because we had Canadians, you know.
Interviewer: Oh, of course.
CY: Lots of them.
Interviewer: I re-watched Stalag 17 the other day just out of interest and it seemed less savage and more comical than I remember it from the first time. It is an enjoyable movie but it’s not the tone necessarily that I would be aiming for. I think if we wanted to make something with this drama but with light moments.
CY: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: I mean I was explaining the story about I can’t remember who it was who went out after befriending one of the guard dogs.
CY: Joe, yes.
Interviewer: The dog for instance. I mean it’s a lovely little story but I am just going to do one sheet or maybe two sheets because I find it very difficult to keep things concise just to tell them roughly how the story goes.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: But I think it would probably be with Dixie coming back after the bombing, his penultimate bombing raid over Berlin to be told apparently he had to fly again the same day and I can’t remember it was Vic Gammon’s book but something I’ve got upstairs says this was going to be his twenty fifth.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: And he was very tired but for some, I can’t remember the reason given now that he had to go again. I think he was more experienced than others.
CY: It’s probably, it’s probably in Vic Gammon’s book —
Interviewer: Yeah.
CY: I would think. Possibly [pause] I don’t think it’s in, “No Flight —”
Interviewer: No. I don’t think so. I think it’s in Vic Gammon’s.
CY: I think it is.
Interviewer: But he was asked or presumably told I suppose rather than asked to —
CY: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: To go out again.
CY: Yeah. Yes, I can remember doing two in a day.
Interviewer: I mean I find it hard enough just keeping awake driving my wife and family up to Sheffield up the motorway.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Presumably it was cold so that must have helped a little.
CY: Yes. I always stayed cold deliberately. I never wore the [pause] I don’t think I even wore a pullover. I certainly never wore the Irvin jacket. I had it in case the heating broke down but —
Interviewer: Right.
CY: But I always liked to be a bit cold. I still do when I’m driving.
Interviewer: You still do.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Oh right. But unfortunately the rest of the family don’t necessarily.
CY: No. That’s the trouble. My wife likes it pretty warm.
Interviewer: There are cars in America now I know where you can have separate heating controls.
CY: Oh, that’s a good idea.
Interviewer: Both sides.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Dixie, do you remember, Dixie got his plane down didn’t he? He didn’t bale out. So, I think, I think he saved his, I think everyone of the crew was alright in that.
CY: I’m not, well I can easily check that.
Interviewer: I mean, you know, I’ve read this and forgotten.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I’m sure I’ve got it upstairs but would you have, would the crew have stayed together? Would he have been with the same men that he started out with then or did people not tend to?
CY: Well, it varied a bit. I had the same crew. Well, I only did thirteen ops anyway. I had. I stayed with the same crew except on one occasion a couple of them [pause] that was interesting too because we, we were supposed to go on six day leave after duty on a certain day and we were sent off on ops to Hamburg. No, not to Hamburg. To Essen. And by the time we got back it was about six in the morning.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: And a couple of the crew reckoned that they were due an extra day so they took it and the day the rest of us got back we went to Hamburg. The irony is that the rear gunner had been transferred to our squadron because he was Australian and they were building up the 460 Squadron and he had already done a lot of ops and if he had gone on that Hamburg raid he’d have finished his tour before we got shot down. He would have finished it on the previous tour.
Interviewer: Serves him right.
CY: Still he might, he mightn’t have survived if he had.
Interviewer: Would, if I’m right in thinking that Dixie’s plane that he got, I’m pretty sure he got the plane down, I don’t remember hearing that anybody died that time would they have then stayed together in —
CY: In the camps. Probably. I know, I know Ginger Parkes was one of his crew and he was with him all the time. But he, the odds are that the crew would have done although occasionally somebody would take a transfer somewhere else.
Interviewer: Just as you probably know almost every movie whoever was at the centre of it has to have somebody that is sort of, that is with him the whole time as his buddy so that he can explain what’s happening.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: So it’s —
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I mean if that’s feasible.
CY: But even, even if it, there were people closer to him than probably his crew were in Germany. Unfortunately, as I told you I think they’re all gone except possibly Joe [Hanslip.] Did I bring my address book? I mean my Association —
Interviewer: I still can’t decide whether to make many of the other people true or not. I think by and large probably if whatever they do reflects well upon them.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: You may as well stick with real people. Somebody you’re putting in who perhaps wouldn’t necessarily [unclear] what you’ve done then it is probably better just to invent them.
CY: Yes. People like Bristow.
Interviewer: Bristow would have to be in.
CY: And Grimson and Ron Mogg. Cyril Aynsley. They’d all stand up to scrutiny so to speak.
Interviewer: We will also probably need some ordinary Joe’s. People who were not part of that group.
CY: Oh, yes. You would.
Interviewer: I think if Dixie is sort of seen by everybody as being a complete hero and a god the entire way through that gets a little bit dull so I sort of imagine that one has sort of one airman who doesn’t particularly want to participate in whatever is going on. Who can’t see why people are [unclear]
CY: Oh, there probably were. I can —
Interviewer: I’m sure you mentioned one or two who were sort of you know didn’t bring a lot or give a lot or bother with anybody else. Then you could show that eventually this person too is won over by this. It seems terribly trite when you say it like that but if you, if somehow the audience sees it through this chap’s eyes I think it would make it. Do you see what I’m getting at? If Dixie is seen by absolutely everybody as wonderful from the start to the finish it’s probably a duller picture.
CY: Yeah. Trouble was they did.
Interviewer: I know. I know.
CY: But yeah, there were disgruntled people and I’ve no doubt some of them —
Interviewer: Well, I think part of disgruntlement is obviously assuaged during that bit where the Tally-ho Committee actually reveal to the room leaders what they’ve actually been spending all the stuff on.
CY: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Which is a wonderful scene and the two bursting in in uniform.
CY: Yes. Grimson and Morris. Yes. Morris is still alive as far as I know. He lives in South Africa. I thought I had my POW address book which is most unusual that I haven’t. I just can’t believe it.
Interviewer: Don’t worry. Perhaps, perhaps I should just jot down the odd name and then —
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: When are you off? Is it next week or the week —
CY: Wednesday. Yeah. Next Wednesday but I can easily phone you with any names you want.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: And Dixie. I’ll look him up in, “Bomber Command Losses.” See what actually happened although I’m sure you’ve got it in Vic’s book. But I’ll check it.
Interviewer: I have it. I have it.
CY: “Bomber Command Losses,” is a fascinating series done by a chap named Bill Chorley and he does a volume a year. Well, ’39/40 he combined in one. Quite a slim volume. And gets up to ’43 and it’s that thick and it covers every crew and what happened to them.
Interviewer: Extraordinary amount of work. I picked up this in a second-hand bookshop yesterday just really to give me a bit of background work. It might not be the best book on Bomber Command.
CY: One of Dennis Richards. Yeah.
Interviewer: It just looked quite interesting.
CY: Oh, this. Yeah. Don Charlwood. Funnily enough I haven’t, I haven’t read it but the original came out the same day as, “No Flight —” in 1956 and I’m hoping to go and see him when I’m in Australia. He’s another Aussie. Yes. He’s written quite a bit now. Yeah. Copyright 1956.
Interviewer: Yeah. How long were the, was an op to Berlin?
CY: In those days oh it must have in Wellingtons or Whitleys it would be seven or, seven —
Interviewer: The Whitley was one of Dixie’s wasn’t it?
CY: He was a Whitley. That’s right. Probably a good seven/eight hours. Maybe nine. It would probably be nine hours I think. If I remember they had to put extra tanks. Extra fuel tanks on and reduce the bomb load a bit.
Interviewer: That’s, I thought I knew all but I don’t think I’d ever heard of a Whitley bomber before. And what happened at the end of the tour which you say it was originally thirty missions. Did you actually go and then you got a bit of a rest because I think, I think you were saying only three out of two hundred got through two tours.
CY: Yes, that’s right. They were, well mostly they went on instructor’s jobs in OTUs. Operational Training Units. That would be the norm. Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you actually, you actually want to complete a tour or were you [unclear]
CY: Oh, I should think most people would like to finish a tour.
Interviewer: It must have been —
CY: Cheshire did three. Three tours.
Interviewer: [unclear] if it had been me I’m not sure I’d have been too eager to get in at all so —
CY: But a lot were pulled out. Maybe halfway through a second tour they’d say you’ve done enough and —
Interviewer: What did it actually mean to finish an op because according to Vic Gammon’s book I think this was his twenty fifth op and I just think well maybe I should make it the last one of the tour but does that mean you then get leave for a week or something and that was something to look forward to.
CY: You were supposed to get leave subject to conditions of course six days in every six weeks. You’d go but you could always be hauled back and I think [pause] no, it is probably in the second of Vic’s books there’s actually a piece about Harris trying to push people to have their leave in the winter and [laughs] and not have it in the summer which was pretty rough because you really needed the break.
Interviewer: I was just trying to get straight in my own mind what it meant to finish a tour.
CY: Finish your tour? Well, it would certainly be —
Interviewer: Apart from the fact it was —
CY: I don’t know in a way because I was on a new squadron and nobody finished their tour before I was shot down.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: So I never actually saw the joy unconfined.
Interviewer: [unclear] one of those.
CY: I’m sure you can.
Interviewer: Were you, were fighter, fighter pilots and bomber crews I presume you had separate airfields for bombers.
CY: Oh yes.
Interviewer: And fighters.
CY: Yes, and mostly the fighters were mostly along the south and up the east coast. Not too far. Sort of up to Essex. I don’t think there were many other fighter stations but bombers were further north. They were in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Yorkshire mostly.
Interviewer: And the camps presumably had fighter pilots just the same as bomber crews. Was there any, was there rivalry between them? Did fighter pilots consider themselves somehow better than bomber crew or was it you just all —
CY: Oh, they probably did but people who would have trained together initially. It’s just you didn’t meet them really because they were in one part of the country and you were in another.
Interviewer: No, I was thinking in the camps.
CY: In the camps? Oh no. No. Most of the time you didn’t know what people had been or if you did you’d forgotten.
Interviewer: Your certificate from Oxford. Was that part of their exam? I mean was it the same as getting a BA or was it sort of —
CY: Well —
Interviewer: I know you got credits towards something else it says on it.
CY: The certificate actually says [pause] something like a standard normally required for university honours. Now, just what that meant I’m not quite sure because when years later I wondered about doing a degree at LSE on an evening basis mostly and after I think 1958 all the old qualifications were extinct as far as the universities were concerned. So they, they told me I would have to do O and A Levels. That kind of thing unless I had a professional qualification of some kind. Now, I worked in a bank in those days. It was my bread and butter. I had no interest in banking although I did quite well funnily enough. I came over here hoping to be a cartoonist in fact. Anyway, when, when I saw that I didn’t want to have to plough through O Levels and the like again so and I hadn’t bothered to take the Banker’s Certificate because the Oxford one I thought was superior. So did the bank incidentally. But when I took it to LSE and they looked at it they said, ‘Well, what do they mean university honours? Write and ask them.’ So I wrote and asked them and the answer came back it means what it says and the LSE wouldn’t take that so I didn’t. I didn’t go on and do the degree. But anyway, I had a novel published at that time and decided right, I’d skip the degree business anyway.
Interviewer: In the camps did you, this will be in “No Flight —” and it will be something I just missed when I’ve gone through but did you, was it compulsory to contribute to the sort of Tally-ho fund?
CY: No.
Interviewer: So it was entirely —
CY: No. It wasn’t. Well, a lot of people didn’t have anything to contribute very much.
Interviewer: Where did they get their —
CY: Well, you know.
Interviewer: Not just presumably from trade.
CY: Sorry, where did they get —?
Interviewer: Where did they get their, I sort of imagine that maybe everybody gave a certain part of every Red Cross parcel that came in to give him a sort of kitty. I was just wondering if —
CY: No. I think it was pretty confined to they traded mostly in cigarettes anyway because the Germans didn’t have them and we did. That was the big situation. That was the irony of it really. I think there probably were some bits of Red Cross parcels because I think we probably, I can’t remember whether we had tea or coffee in them or not. I don’t think we could have done. They probably would have considered that was taking up space without providing much nutrition. I can’t remember that there was any tea or coffee. There might have been. Soap I think was another thing.
Interviewer: Yeah. You mentioned that.
CY: Yeah.
[pause – telephone ringing. Conversation on phone]
CY: You enjoy the Spy caricatures I see.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, when I used to work in the City —
CY: They’re not all —
Interviewer: I got those. I wish I’d got slightly more colourful people than the city ones. [I’ll just write this down while I remember for Jane.]
CY: I had found one of the Marquess of Ailesbury who at one time, this was the Marquess of around about the 1900’s. Well, the Spy era anyway and of course at one time he had owned Great Bedwin and everything around it and so I got that up on the stairs with an old map of the area and the pencil drawing Don Bevan did of me in Germany. Don Bevan being a Stalag 17 man.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: Right. That’s wonderful. Oh, do you know is the, it was originally a play wasn’t it? Stalag 17.
CY: Yes, it was.
Interviewer: Was the play very different to the film?
CY: Well, I didn’t see it.
Interviewer: I wonder if it’s actually just reading the —
CY: He didn’t write it alone. There was somebody else in with him. He was basically an artist although he was also an actor. He used to do I think they called the joint stock companies.
Interviewer: Oh yes.
CY: And he was in that category.
Interviewer: Just going back to, because I can’t work this out in my own mind.
CY: But you see that is so American. “Stalag 17.” Isn’t it?
Interviewer: Oh yes. No. Yes.
CY: I don’t know. I shouldn’t think you’d derive very much knowledge from it.
Interviewer: But there may be interesting instances to take but I suspect —
CY: Yes, you might be able to get something from it.
Interviewer: But instances to make the thing lively would be probably, I’m not sure. Hard to come by.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Even just between your book and Vic Gammon’s. I’m just trying to work out where the, where the Tally-ho Committee got all their funds from because if it was just, if it was just the members of the committee presumably they didn’t have that much to barter in the first place.
CY: Well, I’ll tell you what. Jock Alexander who was the boss of Tally-ho, little known in the camp but he was the man. He might even be there tomorrow but I’ll start taking down things you want [pause – pages turning] in the way of addresses and things. He lives at Weymouth and he was [pause] I think he managed a Marks and Spencer’s store at Weymouth. Anyway, that’s Jock Alexander and Joe [Hanslip] who did, Joe [Hanslip] worked as one of Dixie’s staff. Addresses to Simon.
Interviewer: He had an office I know. I think that’s mentioned in the book did he? What about his quarters? Presumably he wasn’t in a hut in the same way as —
CY: No, he wasn’t. I think he might have shared. I’m not sure if he was on his own or if he was sharing with somebody.
Interviewer: It doesn’t matter too much but in the end these are things that one wants to try and get right I think so it’s reasonably realistically.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: One thing I definitely want to find out at some stage are the lyrics to, “The Bold Aviator,” which crops up in more than, more than one book but nobody ever puts, especially if the books were written a while ago.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: When, you know it wasn’t common to put something so base [laughs] down.
CY: [laughs] Yeah.
Interviewer: I’ve got, I meant to ask if you’d ever come across this and I thought I had a spare copy but I can’t find it. Lord Healey’s son around the time of the VE-Day celebrations they did this all with the original words. So, “Bless them all.”
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Is not quite bless them all anymore. I haven’t re-read the notes but there don’t seem to be any particularly POW ones in there.
CY: No. Well, I don’t think so there were any.
Interviewer: “Come on. Come on chaps,” which is one of them is one of my favourite songs because there are no rude words but the line changes just as it’s about to get [pause] about to get one.
CY: Yes [laughs] yes.
Interviewer: I’ll try and get another one of these and perhaps send it to you. You might enjoy it. It is absolutely fascinating. I’m trying to think what else [pause] one thing you mention in your book you actually refer to homosexuality in it.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: You say but quite a lot but obviously you hardly saw any women for several years and you say you know that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that you knew of.
CY: No.
Interviewer: Though later when the Germans were almost [unclear] looking in between two huts.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: The inference is given that this is because of the sort of homosexuality is —
CY: Yeah. That was because there was so much of it among the Germans and so by hinting that that’s what it was the German he understood alright.
Interviewer: There was. There was among the Germans because one always sort of understands that in prison for instance there is.
CY: Well —
Interviewer: But that’s why I wondered how you could go for four years without —
CY: I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe there was but I make, you know I make the point that you would have had to do it publicly. There really was nowhere anybody could have gone off quietly to hide if you like. It may, may have happened. I don’t know. There were one or two known homosexuals in the camp. There was a chap called Fairy Evans who was a sort of great professional comedian. A very good chap actually and he had quite a story because after the war he was managing a jewellers shop in I think it was Singapore was it? Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. One of them. Somewhere in that area anyway in Southeast Asia and apparently he was the manager of this jeweller’s shop and apparently the staff used to pay themselves at the beginning of the month instead of the end and they got new employers who then charged Fairy anyway, I don’t know about the rest of the staff. They charged him with theft and he went to prison there. Joe [Hanslip] whose name I just said I’d give you —
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Was a Dunlop Rubber representative in those days. His arrival in Singapore or wherever it was was in the papers and he got a telephone call and, ‘Is that you, Joe?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘This is Fairy Evans here.’ ‘Oh, where are you, Fairy?’ ‘Well, as a matter of fact I’m ringing from the Governor’s Office in the jail.’ [laughs] And he was, he was training the inmates for a pantomime in the jail. But anyway he, he came back afterwards and he was a floor walker in I think it was C&As and Peter Thomas’ wife bought something and —
Interviewer: This is Lord Thomas —
CY: Yeah. She died but she was, she’d paid by cheque. This was before cheque cards came in and so the salesperson took it to Fairy Evans to counter sign and he realised who it was and said, ‘I’m not going to sign that. I can’t allow that.’ Of course, Mrs Thomas got very upset and then he said, ‘It’s alright dear. I’m only kidding. I was with your husband in Germany.’ [laughs] And he was all made up and everything. It makes you wonder what the hell Pete had been up to in Germany [laughs]
[recording paused]
CY: “The Dark Side of the Sky.”
Interviewer: Yes. I haven’t managed, I haven’t even tried to track it down.
CY: Right. That was published by Leo Cooper.
Interviewer: Well, that’s interesting. I rang [pause] [unclear] guy. I rang the company very early on and said, ‘Do you have any books on the subject?’ They said, ‘Oh no. No. Nothing like that.
CY: Well, there it is.
Interviewer: Right. I will read that. To be honest what I’m quite looking forward to sitting down and just sitting reading for a little while.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: There’s never the time to do it.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I’m at the stage like in any project —
CY: What —
Interviewer: I’ll probably go to the Imperial War Museum as well and listen to those tapes.
CY: Yeah. What do you do?
Interviewer: Oh, I review movies.
CY: Oh, which movies?
Interviewer: Movies and videos.
CY: Yes. That’s scriptwriting.
Interviewer: Scriptwriting is something I’ve started doing.
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: I tried doing it when I left college.
CY: So what have you been doing in movies? What —
Interviewer: You mean what have I written or reviewed? I review films every week for the Daily Mirror.
CY: Ah yes.
Interviewer: Films and videos and for different local BBC local radio stations around the country.
CY: Right.
Interviewer: I used to be a stockbroker. Then I became a financial journalist and I’ve been reviewing as part of the job and then I get bored easily. That’s the problem.
CY: Who were you with as a stockbroker?
Interviewer: Phillips and Drew.
CY: Oh, really?
Interviewer: Who have ceased completely to exist.
CY: Yes, absolutely.
Interviewer: A lot of people I know or used to know lost their jobs in the last few weeks.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I was a financial journalist for the BBC for a while and I wrote a column for, “Punch,” for about eight and a half years until [unclear] Prosser who is the [unclear]member of the [unclear] company and when Punch closed I got very bored as a financial journalism because I had no aptitude for trying to be at all creative.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: So I started reviewing movies and I’ve been with the Mirror [unclear] myself I suppose for about three and a half years and if one particular [laughs] one particular actor rings us to say that he will do this movie then we start filming this summer. This will be my first.
CY: Yes. Because I saw Roy Dotrice’s very first performance on stage.
Interviewer: He was one of the ladies. Is that right?
CY: Yes, he doesn’t let on about that in any of his biographies.
Interviewer: Another thing that occurred to me is that is difficult to do but perhaps at the end credits the people you’ve actually have seen during the film is to sort of show them again and say what they went on to do.
CY: Oh yes.
Interviewer: The logistics of that are so complicated.
CY: Yes. But I think anyway it would probably be too British. You probably have to do what they did in the Great Escape and introduce fictional characters like Steve McQueen on his motorbike.
Interviewer: Yes.
CY: Because there weren’t any Americans in the Great Escape.
Interviewer: No.
CY: Not one.
Interviewer: There were, wasn’t there a Norwegian and a —
CY: Yes. There were Norwegians.
Interviewer: Dutch or something.
CY: The Norwegian got home. In fact, I think the three who got home I think were all [pause] they were all non-British.
Interviewer: There was either two Norwegian and a Belgian or —
CY: Yes.
Interviewer: Two Belgians and a Norwegian. Yes.
CY: Yeah.
Interviewer: I don’t think we’ll have to make up as many things as they did. There were some Americans presumably on the march were there not? Because by that stage different groups had come together.
CY: Yeah. But by this, by that time I think all the Americans were in their own camps.
Interviewer: Right.
CY: We had an American compound at Heydekrug but there wasn’t any real, there was trading across the wire by throwing things across but the, there was no real contact.
Interviewer: Which is odd because just quickly flitting through the MI9 book, the Foot and Langley book and it was talking about you know there was contact between the two bits.
CY: Well, when the Americans first started coming in we were all together but then they hoiked them out to their own camps. Whether there were any left in some of the other camps I don’t know and even —
Interviewer: I don’t —
CY: Even at Stalag Luft 3 they had their own quite separate camp. In fact, I remember somebody who went and lived in America and saw there was a Stalag Luft 3 reunion so he went and they wouldn’t believe that any Brits had been at Stalag Luft 3. Because Stalag Luft 3 in the end was various camps. It was a huge camp.
Interviewer: There was a documentary on it a few days ago on the History Channel which I’ve now got the tape of which has the true story behind the Great Escape. I think you might be interested to watch because it’s got Stalag Luft 3 in it. And also an interesting one, “Escape from Arizona,” when twenty five members of the Germans, there were thousands of Germans were held with the Axis held prisoner in America.
CY: That’s right.
Interviewer: They let twenty five out.
CY: And in Canada.
Interviewer: Yes. Well, the best story I’ve come across recently that you may, you probably have heard everything but just again just quickly flicking through the MI9 book which I haven’t looked at properly one of the shortest runs, home runs was believed to be this guy who had gone to the Savoy and met this girl that he just liked so much they decided to get engaged that night and agreed to meet her a week later to celebrate. He flew over Northern France on a Monday, got shot down. The first time he parachuted he got impaled on a greenhouse. The gardener was a member of the Resistance and hid him away but the Count who owned the chateau saw him trying to clear away the parachute and the Count then invited the airman into the chateau where he rested for two days. He was woken in the middle of the night, taken back by SOE and kept his date with the girl the following Saturday who he eventually married.
CY: Oh right.
Interviewer: SOE sent him, they sent him to Scotland for a while to get out of the way in case he knew anything. That’s a lovely story.
CY: Well, I had a most extraordinary experience because I got away for eight days as you know —
Collection
Citation
Simon Rose, “Interview with Calton Younger,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed August 17, 2026, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/59441.