27 Jul 1942, John Charter's wartime journal

A fine day at last. I crept away this morning while Yvonne was busy washing, collected the paint box etc. and stole off to my selected point. Incidentally, this spot is just opposite a sentry box on the cliff side and I am just a little anxious that the sentry may take it upon himself to come over and see what I am up to. A rock screens me from his direct view so I daresay he thinks I have gone there just to read (if he thinks at all!) and in any case there is no rule so far as I know against making landscape paintings of the local views.

I got to work, sketched out the hills and put on a couple of preliminary washes. So far so good. But when I started to block in the general shadows of the hills, I came quite unstuck, for the paper was so absorbent and the temperature so high that the paint dried before I had a chance to do anything with it. It was like working on blotting paper and demanded a technique of daubs and blobs which would be no more than impressionistic and would not allow sufficient detail for a smallish picture like this. To add to my troubles the perspiration rolled off me and my fist stuck to the paper whenever I touched it. So the long and short of it is that I have decided to start again - one precious day wasted. But I think it is all to the good because I have obtained from a Mrs Braithwait a much better piece of paper (with an old pen and ink sketch on one side) and it looks now as though we are in for a spell of fine weather which means the colours of the sea and sky will be more brilliant than they were this morning.

On Saturday we went to the most excellent concert given by the ‘Optimists.’ The moving spirit in the show was Cyril Brown - he wrote most of the lyrics for the songs - though Carol Bateman directed the show and was responsible for some really excellent dancing:  the acrobatic dancing by June Winklemann and Dorothy Morley was really first class. They are about thirteen years-old and they both have lovely figures and are very supple and graceful. Cressal was responsible for a very amusing opening chorus and a snappy and amusing programme. Garton (of the PWD) has come to the fore in these concerts and has proved himself an artiste above the average; rumour has it that he was once on stage as a variety artist. At the end, Gimson, the newly appointed Colonial Secretary (he arrived in the Colony about a week before war was declared here) made a stirring speech, the purport of which could not be mistaken. He referred to a dream he had had when he found himself walking through the familiar surroundings of Stanley, but he noticed several changes, chief of which was a different sort of flag seemed to be fluttering over the prison! At the concert given for the departing Americans Gimson made a still more stirring speech. One phrase of his evoked the most spontaneous shout I have ever heard I think. I cannot remember his words, but the gist of it was that we were saying farewell to our American friends; he knew in his heart of hearts……as we all did……that we should meet again out of here when conditions would be very different to those that obtained at the present. He voiced our own personal convictions in a bold and blunt manner and it was good to hear it. Japanese officials were somewhere in the crowd and it says a lot for their understanding that no exception was taken to the remark. After all, we are prisoners, forcibly, and therefore, in our prison camp amongst ourselves, we are entitled at least to freedom of thought and speech. This would be accorded to prisoners of war in our own country and we expect the same for ourselves. Of course, this would probably not be permitted in Gestapo ridden Germany.

Marjorie, poor girl, has just been taken off to hospital by Tim and Harold, suffering excruciatingly from ear-ache. Apparently she is often a martyr to ear-ache, but this time the fluid (wax etc.) behind the ear could not escape through the usual small passage, which had become blocked, and the pressure had actually burst the eardrum. She had been given a morphine injection to deaden the pain, poor thing. Tim and the doctor are worried because, in spite of the relief that the perforated eardrum should have given, her ear still aches abominably. I do hope she will be better by tomorrow.

Yvonne has been having a somewhat hectic afternoon with Kevin Hackett and Adrian! She often helps Kitty by looking after Kevin. I don’t know if I have already mentioned it, but Olive Burt had a baby boy born on May 1st, and Kitty Hackett had her second son, Connor, born on May 3rd.

So far, in this camp, we have had births, deaths, three or four marriages, one imprisonment and one divorce! So far no murders! Though, from what one hears, several people have felt like doing a bit of quiet murdering - generally their neighbours!