 GARDENING
It is getting late for planting daffodils, iris reticulata and the early bulbs. Scillas
should be planted in the grass and left to naturalise, and the golden aconites introduced
into any woodland. Meanwhile, anemones, either the single-flowered de Caens or double St.
Brigids, can go in; left undisturbed they will increase. Start deviding large clumps of
asters (Michaelmas daisies) and large trespassing perennials in the border, but do not
disturb the scabious, or pyrethrums until April. The majority of trees and shrubs can be
planted from November to February when the weather is mild and the plants dormant.
Hydrangeas benefit by light winter protection, and in cold districts dead flowers are best
left uncut. Hydrangea paniculata with cream, pointed trusses of late summer flowers, is an
ideal shrub if you are on lime-free soil. The lacecup, 'Blue Wave,' with plate-like flower
heads is deservedly popular. All members of this family do well in tubs.
Radio Old-Timers Visit Muckleburgh
Members of the Radio Amateur Old Timers Association (RAOTA) visited the Muckleburgh
Collection Military Museum, Weybourne, on Saturday 22nd September for a
"Get-Together" hosted by the North Norfolk Amateur Radio Group (NNARG) whose
"home" is the Radio Hut at the museum. RAOTA aims "to keep alive the
pioneer spirit and traditions of the past in today's Amateur Radio…." and its
members have been actively involved in Amateur Radio for at least 25 years. The oldest
RAOTA visitor on the day was 83-year old Gordon Fuller, radio callsign G4DRF, from Wood
Hall Spa in Lincolnshire, who was first licensed as a radio amateur in 1941 when working
in America as a ground radio engineer for Pan Am. He is still active on the air with his
amateur radio station and continues to enjoy the hobby. During the visit, RAOTA's
national president, Dr Ken Jones G3RRN, expressed the appreciation of his members to the
Radio Group for their hospitality and presented the Group chairman, Laurie Buttriss, a
former maritime radio officer, with a folder containing all the publications of RAOTA.
The visit was organised by Norfolk RAOTA member John Nash from Mundford. Other
members came from far and wide with the member travelling the greatest distance coming
from Gravesend in Kent. The visitors were shown around NNARG's unique collection of
radio and other communications equipment, dating from Victorian times to post-WW2. The
Group's working vintage amateur station, with commercial and home-made equipment from the
1950's, was of particular interest to older RAOTA members who remembered using equipment
of this type in their own lifetime. They also visited the main museum at Muckleburgh,
enjoyed a meal in the restaurant and particularly liked the opportunity of holding their
"Get Together" in such a radio-orientated location. The North Norfolk
Amateur Radio Group meets at Muckleburgh on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 4 pm
and most Sunday afternoons. Radio enthusiasts who are interested in joining the Group and
are able to attend on at least one of those days will be made most welcome. Telephone
Laurie Buttriss, 01263 825651, for further details. More information on RAOTA can be found
on the internet at http://www.raota.org/ and the
website of the Radio Group at Muckleburgh is http://www.radioclubs.net/nnarg |
War hero's diaries from life in Japanese jail
finally published.
A Sheringham war veteran's poignant diaries of life and death in a notorious Japanese
prison camp are finally to be published on November 1st some 15 years after his death.
Sergeant Jack Farrow, who had to bury almost 1,000 of his comrades while he was held for
three years in appalling conditions, risked almost certain execution to keep his account.
For three years at Changi prison, in Singapore, he secretly recorded the daily
battle for survival. Using old calendars, notebooks and scraps of paper, which he would
hide beneath his bed each night, Jack wrote by crude oil lamp. The 30-year old
sergeant from the 5th Royal Norfolks expected, in 1941, to go to India, to train troops,
however, the fortunes of war turned the world upsidedown with the simultaneous Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbour and Northern Malaya he found himself a month later in the Malayan
jungle fighting for his life, not only against the Japanese Imperial Army but the jungle
itself. Having made it back to Singapore in time for the surrender in February 1942, he
was taken with 1000s of other allied troops to the notorious Changi jail. At Changi he was
given the gruesome task of founding the camp cemetery where he helped bury fellow
prisoners who fell victim to injury, disease and starvation. Many suffered slow, agonizing
deaths because of lack of medication.
Ironically, his pre-wartime job as a landscape gardener, which earmarked him for the
grave-digging job, may have aided Jack's survival. Unlike many comrades, he avoided being
sent 'up country' to labour on the Burma railway. Nonetheless he still suffered
debilitating dengue fever and the vitamin deficiency disease known as pellagra.
Keeping a diary was strictly forbidden but Jack risked severe punishment to describe
conditions in the prison, including how torrential downpours caused the bodies of soldiers
to float to the surface during burial services, and how he scavenged in the jungle for
food. At one stage he feared he was about to be beheaded by an angry guard and, on
another occasion, he and some colleagues were marched into the jungle and lined up as if
to be shot.
For years after the war the diaries languished at his home in Sheringham, Norfolk, until
the former soldier's wife, Mrs Joan Farrow finally persuaded him they should be written up
and possibly published. Shortly before his death in 1992, they were transcribed with the
help of his son, Francis. Jack, who died aged 79 the year after celebrating his golden
wedding anniversary, did not live to see the book in its finished form, but his son says:
"He would be very proud. It is an important piece of history and at last after many
false hopes it will be on the bookshelves."
Both Joan and Francis will be at Bertram A Watts, the booksellers, in Sheringham on
Saturday 3rd November, between 10 and 12 noon when copies of the book 'Darkness before the
Dawn' can be obtained and signed if requested.
* Darkness Before the Dawn, by Sgt. JN Farrow, will be published by Stamford House
Publishing (November 2007) ISBN 978-1-904985-55-6. Price £9.95. It will be available at
all good bookshops. |
