Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 33

INTERVIEW

life

the enemy had for the civilian
population. The picture was not a
pretty one.
This Unit was not part of what
became known as Dad’s Army –
which itself did a wonderful job.
The regular Home Guard did not
even know the Auxilliary Unit
existed. This was an underground
movement, set up to carry out
guerrilla warfare after invasion,
and they were supplied, amongst
other things, with poison to take
if captured, so they could commit
suicide if tortured. The regular
Home Guard didn’t even know
they existed, which meant my
father and his colleagues had to
be ready with plausible excuses if
challenged by a uniformed man.
My mother and I were told very
little, but we did learn that what
was planned for us was quite as
bad as, if not worse than, the
treatment meted out to the Jews
by the Nazis. My poor father must
have been at his wits ’end, having
experienced life in the trenches
during the First World War, and

Photo: Barbara aged 3 (1926) - Inset left: Barbara's passport
photo taken in 1952

having seen the kind of treatment
women had received at the hands of Germans.
We seriously considered a suicide pact should
the expected invasion take place, but I refused.
I didn’t know then that life expectancy for men
in the Unit, in the event of invasion, was just a
fortnight.
At this time I was working in the office of
Whitecroft Psychiatric Hospital, dealing with the
medical correspondence and so in daily contact
with the Medical Superintendent. One morning,
he called me into his office and told me that
he had received disturbing information about
the treatment we could expect in the event
of invasion; for example, he himself would be
required either to exterminate his patients or
to carry out medical experiments on them. His
words to me were: “Under no circumstances
will I live under Nazi domination. As soon as
I hear that there has been a landing on the
Island I shall go into my laboratory for the last
time, and, if you like, you can come with me.

Talk it over with your parents.”
I told him that we had already discussed the
possibility of suicide but I had discarded the
idea, for if everyone did that, the enemy would
have a walkover. Alas for the arrogance of
youth! Here was I, at nineteen, having already
made it impossible for my parents to commit
suicide (which they would not do without
me) and now virtually accusing my boss of
cowardice. Who was I to judge a man faced
with such a dreadful dilemma? A man who,
incidentally, over the next twenty years or so,
proved to be a very loyal and staunch friend.
The atmosphere on the Island during the
early part of the war was a very uneasy one.
There were a number of residents with Nazi
sympathies, which, because of my father’s
role, I was possibly more aware of than most
Islanders. Some, though not all, were of
German origin who for some reason (perhaps
married to local people) were not interned.
These sympathizers represented the “fifth
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