[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

VI THE JOURNEY TO WAKEFIELD, AND A SURPRISE

IT was a fine day and we marched for miles. It seemed very strange to see fields, houses, animals, even normal and quite uninterned and unmilitary human beings in the distance. One had almost forgotten the existence of such everyday life and conditions. The scenery was charming - I was sorry to have to get into a train for Douglas at some wayside station. Douglas again looked pleasant enough in the sunshine, but one was rushed to the steamer bound for Liverpool. We had a calm, uneventful crossing ; we were allowed on deck this time. Everyone was in high spirits, this was indeed wonderful. But evidently strong contrasts were considered good for us. In going out to the Isle the journey had begun well and ended badly, and now again we were in for an abrupt change. From the steamer we were bundled into police-vans, known to the populace as 'Black Marias' and used for the transport of criminals. One tried to joke about it, but one did not really feel much like joking, for quite apart from the discomfort those horrible hard benches and want of ventilation - it seemed a gratuitous insult. Next to me sat a black-bearded man whom I had never seen before and he began a conversation by saying, 'How very different these vans are from the type used in London, are they not ? ' I did not encourage further conversation. [63]There was a hostile crowd at the station gates, it seemed like Stratford all over again ; at last we were seated in the train, but there was not much cheeriness left by this time, all were mute and depressed. Evening was coming, the train steamed slowly through a black factory district. Houses, chimneys, blast furnaces, clouds and gloom, and I thought longingly of the pure sky left behind. What would the new place be like? Discussions had begun again, some of the men knew all about it. It would be a marvellous place. Lofthouse Park was its name, not Wakefield, that was only the nearest city, but Lofthouse Park was a large estate with a mansion on it. Would we live in real rooms ? Not only that, but everyone had a room to himself, there were gardens and a park, there was - one had read in the papers - a golf course. A gentlemen's camp, you understand, they said. It was strange to reflect that a few months ago one could have taken treatment as a gentleman for granted - was there any other possibility? Well, there had been crowds, hospitals, Black Marias since then. Perhaps all that was over now and one would be allowed to live more or less like one had been used to, though with restrictions of liberty of movement. Why shouldn't it be true, after all ? Why should one be punished, what wrong had one done, was it not enough to restrict one's movements to a country estate if one's mixing with Englishmen was considered undesirable and dangerous ? It seemed plausible enough.

We got out of the train, walked through steep streets. There was a large church - I thought of the Vicar of Wakefield. More steep streets, workmen's cottages in serried rows, a smoky sky, a stiff climb, :and then barbed wire once more. Another gate, another camp. Smaller than Knockaloe, red corrugated iron huts instead of wooden huts, sand instead of clay. No hills, no sea. [64]A dirty, empty hut. Night. The most hopeless night since that first night at Stratford, which seemed so infinitely far removed already.

I did not see the camp until the following morning, but its discovery was not a pleasant surprise as had been that of Knockaloe. The disappointment had been too great.

At one time Lofthouse Park had been - as it survived in the legends I had heard - a country house surrounded by fine grounds. The house could still be seen, a simple Georgian mansion surrounded by fine old trees, and it was now the abode of the Commandant - unfortunately however, house and lawns were separated from the camp by barbed wire. The grounds had, I suppose, been sold a number of years ago and a sort of amusement park had sprung up there. A large wooden building, built for a concert hall or theatre, had formed its centre and that had been used to house prisoners and become the nucleus of the camp. There were now three camps, each containing about five hundred men and - heaven knows why - separated from each other by barbed wire. The first camp was that which had arisen round the concert hall, the South Camp. The hall, which contained a stage and an auditorium, had become a rabbit warren full of beds, chairs, clothes, and men. Some wooden huts had been added when it overflowed, hospital-barracks had followed, a few trees remained. The South Camp was pleasantly irregular and untidy ; it could, by a stretch of imagination, pass for picturesque. After the South Camp the North Camp had been built, and it was as correctly planned and hopeless as regulations prescribed. Long, low, wooden huts stood in serried rows and there was a corrugated iron hall presented by an Anglo-German donor. The ground was flat and there was a fairly large free space for games and exercise. The West Camp, built on sloping ground, was the latest and smallest. [65]It had corrugated iron huts, and was a treeless, grassless, sandy waste. It was this we had exchanged for Knockaloe, and it looked the most hopeless, ugliest and gloomiest place to me on my first morning there. Only remnants of what had been an avenue of fine chestnut trees, outside the wire, of course, were pleasant to look at. The camp was not only hideous but also much smaller than the 'compound' at Knockaloe had been, as it was intended for only half the number of prisoners.All it was, was an uglier and smaller cage of exactly the same description !

But the fact that it was to be a more comfortable cage became apparent almost at once. At that time, in 1915, prisoners were allowed to buy most things they could pay for, and the tradesmen of the neighbouring town of Leeds did not scruple to take advantage of that fact. When a new batch of prisoners arrived, a Leeds firm sent up a cart full of the furnishings that might be required, and thus I became possessed of a camp bed, stuff for curtains, and even a tin jug and basin. Boards and other necessities entered the camp in some mysterious manner ; there were carpenters amongst the prisoners, and there was a certain measure of freedom in the arrangement of your surroundings. The canteen seemed a sort of Selfridge's after that at Knockaloe, so large was the variety of its goods, and there even existed a kind of snack counter with all sorts of German Delikatessen and glasses of sherry or beer. That seemed extremely luxurious, worthy of a 'gentlemen's camp.'

Wakefield provided me with the only simple and straightforward definition of that mysterious creature, the gentleman. To the authorities responsible for its creation a gentleman was a man prepared to pay ten shillings a week to them for the privilege of being there.He was allowed to draw £3 per week from his deposit (if any) at the Camp Bank, and to spend them inside the camp or on things ordered from the outer world (all this was to change later). [66]He could have books or anything else, except foodstuffs or objects considered dangerous, sent from the outside world, and his friends in England - if he had any - could send him what they liked. Once a week a firm of Leeds hosiers displayed their goods in the camp and they must have made a lot of money, for here in Wakefield everyone was decently and conventionally clad, as gentlemen should be. There was a P.O., there was a barber's shop, there was presently a hut given by the Y.M.C.A. (for that association and the Quakers were the only ones to stick to their notions of Christian conduct even in wartime).Wakefield was, in fact, an extremely civilized and comfortable place when compared to Knockaloe. All the newcomers were already delighted with the change and congratulating each other on their lucky escape. My three taxi friends, for instance, seemed quite happy. We had already begun the construction of our 'home' It was divided off from the rest of the hut by curtains of blue casement cloth, held the beds, and soon some sort of cupboard and a table, to which I added a small bookshelf. I was very pleased with so much comfort and beauty, but I did not feel happy - a fact I took good care to keep to myself. Knockaloe had been a Wild West place, rough, barbaric, but, to me at least, exhilarating. I had always known that its interest lay in the presence of what I have called the 90 per cent., yet I had never reflected on what a camp might be without their presence: What would life in this new place be like where all were gentlemen, with the exception of a very limited number of stewards, etc. It seemed to me a very colourless, very drab and monotonous place. I might be wrong, of course-all the others liked it. It might be that the change of air affected me, it seemed so heavy and listless here. [67]But one would get used to the climate, that was nothing. It was nor the physical atmosphere that mattered, but the mental atmosphere - what would that gentlemanly atmosphere turn out to be like ?

Discussion

The march would be along the road from Knockaloe to St Johns, about 4km, as St John's station was often used for such transfers - the rush to the steamer was probably along South Quay then across the swing bridge to arrive at Victoria pier for what was probably the usual 9am boat..

A party of 60 would probably be considered too small to arrange a special train from Liverpool Riverside station alongside the Princes' landing stage at Liverpool hence the need for the Black Marias..

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML© F Coakley , 2021