On my father's death, I inherited 3 school-type exercise books. They contained his hand-written diary account of his wartime service.
Of the Battle of Tobruk he writes, "I will refrain from commenting on the fall of Tobruk which came the following day Sunday 21st June, 1942. Our losses were very heavy and it was there I became a prisoner of war along with 30,000 or so other men."
He subsequently spent time in camps in N Africa, Italy and Germany, always documenting daily life.
My father hoped to have his diary published. But this fell to me, when I learnt that one of our photography group, Ian Douglas, had self-published books. In addition to the written diary plus images my dad brought home, we included transcripts from his interview with the Imperial War Museum about his experiences at Tobruk and Dresden.
And among my inherited papers was my 13-year-old dad's school report. I noted the teacher's award of A-minus for English and the accompanying comment, 'Tells an interesting story'.
He certainly did go on to experience an interesting story and to tell that story, no imagination needed................
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