Asian
PagesPagesby Alex Glendinning
Civilian Internees Messages 2000 | 1999
| 1997-8
My father Fred Glendinning was a Civilian Internee of the Japanese
in Singapore during WWII. This subject is one of my primary interests.
I am currently writing a book based around the diaries of several internees
and would welcome any input, especially of survivors and their families
who have kept unpublished diaries and pictures.
Here follows a brief summary of the material collected so
far for the project:-
THE LLEWELLYN LETTERS:
A Singapore Civilian Internee's unposted letters to his Wife 1942-1945
Introduction 1934-1942
Alun Ewart Llewellyn studied at Birmingham University and later in Staffordshire,
graduating with a 1st Class Mining Engineer's Degree and a 1st Class Mine
Manager's Certificate. As there was little work for a man of his qualifications
in England in the 1930s, he took the advice of his University Professor
and Mine Management Examiner, who had both written to suggest that he applied
for a position in Malaya.
Alun came out in 1934 to work for J.A. Russell and Co Ltd, as Technical
Advisor to the General Managers of Malayan Collieries. He and his wife Morag
settled in Kuala Lumpur and Alun travelled between there and Batu Arang,
Selangor, where the mines were located.
In 1941, two years into World War II, the Malayan Volunteers were mobilised,
in preparation for the defence of the country. The law required that the
manager be the holder of a 1st Class Mine Manager's Certificate, so Alun
was made acting manager at Batu Arang when the manager was on duty. The
production of coal for the railways and power stations was considered essential
war work.
As the Japanese invasion began, he was ordered to leave nothing they would
find useful and presided over the flooding of the mines before leaving for
Kuala Lumpur, and subsequently Singapore, where he stayed until the surrender,
when all the Europeans were marched to Changi Gaol.
Letters to Morag 1942-1945
Meanwhile Morag, who had gone home in 1938 to have her first child Roger,
was pregnant again, and was sent away from Malaya with her son to South
Africa in January 1942, where Malcolm was born later that year.
Alun kept a diary, written in the form of letters that he hoped one day
to have the opportunity to send to her, some of them in poignant response
to the correspondence received from Morag later in his incarceration at
Changi Gaol and Sime Road. They extend until he was taken aboard a hospital
ship for home in 1945.
After The War 1945-1967
After a period of recuperation, Alun, Morag and Malcolm returned to Malaya,
the letters were filed away in a box and, although he had told her about
them, remained unread. In common with many returning prisoners of the Japanese,
the subject was too painful to discuss.
Unsurprisingly, the collieries were bankrupt, but a British Government loan
got them up and running again until diesel became the main source of fuel
for the railways and power stations of Malaya and they were closed down
as uneconomical in 1951.
J.A. Russell and Co. had other interests, the principal one being Boh Tea
Estate in the Cameron Highlands, and remained in operation. Alun became
general manager in 1959. His career ended in the mid-1960s when he was diagnosed
as suffering from cancer. Everything was packed up and sent back to England
in 1966 and he and Morag began house-hunting, settling on the milder climate
of the Channel Islands. Holmwood was purchased in St Brelade, Jersey
but Alun died in 1967.
Morag stayed in the house alone and, exhausted by the move and caring for
her sick husband, left the letters in their box in a cupboard, along with
many other papers, and there they stayed for just over twenty years.
The Letters Come to Light
Jersey is prone to the occasional hurricane force storm and a particularly
big one in 1987 blew down a chimney and Holmwood was flooded. The
workmen engaged in the clean up operation reported all the water had been
sucked from the property, but that they had been having trouble clearing
one cupboard. A soaking wet box emerged from the chaos, Morag carefully
separated all the pages and spread them out on the lounge floor to dry,
reading them for the first time.
Fred Glendinning
My father was also a Civilian Internee in Changi Gaol. He was born in Harrogate,
Yorkshire in 1902, the son of Fred Glendinning of the Malayan Public
Works Department (and later State Engineer, Johore) and Annie Evelyn
Scholefield.
Educated at Clare House School, Kent and Bedford School, he joined the London
office of William Jacks and Co. in 1921 and was transferred to Malaya in
1925, working successively as a sales assistant in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh
and managing the Penang branch for William Jacks (Malaya) Ltd, merchants.
He had been seconded to manage the Building Supply Department in Singapore
when the Japanese came, and spent 1942-45 in Changi Gaol and Sime Road Camp.
After six months recuperation in England, he returned to Singapore and was
appointed to the board of William Jacks, where he continued his interrupted
career until he took early retirement in 1953, married Margit Jolan Szedmáky
and went to live in Jersey. Fred Glendinning passed away in 1983.
In common with many survivors, he refused to speak in any detail of his
experiences but kept a small envelope full of photographs taken at Sime
Road Camp which were passed to me when he died. These pictures and other
family items sparked my interest in family history.
Photograph taken at Sime Road Internment Camp Singapore
(probably at the Liberation, September 1945)
Fred Glendinning is third from the left (with the beard).
If you can volunteer any further information - (when were the
pictures taken? - Do you recognise anyone?) I would be keen to
hear from you.
By e-mail: glen@itl.net
By snail-mail: No. 1 Tara Heights, New St John's Road, St Helier, Jersey
JE2 3LE, UK.
The Buxton Diary and Belderson Collection
As many old Malaya and Singapore hands had retired to Jersey in the 50s
and 60s, I advertised my interests locally to see what else would appear.
Mr Eddie Buxton had preserved his father's diary and a local collector had
purchased a photograph album and scrapbook kept by HH Belderson, also a
civilian internee.
The Jackson Drawings
The artist C. Jackson, an internee in his sixties, has drawings preserved
in both the Belderson and Buxton collections - Changi Gaol in 1942
and a hut in Sime Road Camp in 1944 (see below).
This is summary of the items I have to work with so far, plus the various
publications mentioned in The
British in Singapore and Malaya.
Changi Gaol in 1942
A hut in Sime Road Camp in 1944
E-mail about this site is now at Civilian Internees Messages 2000
| 1999 | 1997-8