SINGAPORE AND THE THAI RAILWAY EXPERIENCES OF ...

made up the lists of men to go. I was not anxious to go but, when I was put on the list, I had a
struggle with my conscience and kept my name on the list. I left N.P. on Jan.13 '45 for
Tamuan. We had a good trip by lorry and barge. I arrived to find the food reasonable and
met many old friends whom I had not seen for a couple of years. There were Tony Mills,
Tom Evans, Maurice Gulliford,
42.
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Charlie Woodcock, Donald Napier, Lincoln Page, Tony Lock and many others. In some
ways I was glad to be at Tamuan to see so many old friends. I did 2 or 3 days' work, and then
the officers were all moved out of the camp to go to a special officers' camp. John Craig,
Charles Thornton, Tiger Colthart [Coltart], George Keyser, Harry Toms, Johnny Johnston
were amongst them, and we all had a party the night before, with sweet coffee and cake
provided by the canteen. After this I got a job in the hospital office with Maurice, taking the
place of Arthur Saringeon[??], who was an officer. Unfortunately I went off my food and it
turned out to be yellow jaundice. I had this for 3 months from Jan. 30th till about April 28th
and I was in hospital the whole time. Pavillard gave me 1 pint of sugar and I was on a special
fat free diet, and did not
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do too badly in the grub stakes. I used to peel vegetables in the morning and get extra
douvers. Then the jaundice diet included 2 eggs a day and also extra vegetables. Pavillard
made rather a pet of me and kept me in for a longer time than most. At the end I was doing
the water fatigue - that is drawing the water from the wells for bathing the other patients. We
sometimes got a little extra food for doing this. Porky Gardiner, David Morrison, Charles
Woodcock, Pat Kennedy and I were all in the same ward. Every evening I used to go over to
talk with Tony Mills, Maurice Gulliford and Charlie Woodcock. Lincoln had a job in the
hospital office taking blood specimens for malaria diagnosis but he kept out or our
discussions for some reason. We called
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ourselves the "Thinkers". Every evening I would say to Charles, "Coming to Thinkers this
evening?" We usually did. Jerry O'Hare used to join us often. Here, our discussions were on
a more exalted level than those at N.P. with John Godber and Gahan and Stoney. We had
little talks about Art and Literature from Professor Hough, and about Architecture from
Lincoln. I never gave any talks because, frankly, the intellectual level of these chaps was a
lot higher than mine. Tony was a Double First at Cambridge, Hough and David Rintoul from
Kings, the same. Maurice and I, as earnest seekers after knowledge, were on about the same
level. Jerry O'Hare was a good deal behind in these discussions - his favourite subject was
commerce, which was a subject not popular amongst the rest.
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Sometimes Jerry, Maurice and I would join forces to pull the legs of the Government wallas -
that is Tony Mills, Tony Lock and Hough.
My best friends here would be Tony Mills, Maurice Gulliford and Charles Woodcock.
Lincoln and I had drifted apart somehow. I did see him in the afternoons sometimes when he