A Wearside Lad in World War II

Add to Basket

Loading Product...

Please wait while we load your product.

By History of Education Project.

This is the extraordinary story of Len Gibson's life as a P.O.W. in the Far East, as told by Len himself from his early years in Sunderland to his life after the war. A remarkable journey from a remarkable man.The author, one of the last survivors of Sunderland’s own ill-fated 125 Anti-Tank Regiment, has published his memoirs. His book depends not on memory alone, but on a secret contemporaneous shorthand record kept by Len and hidden from Japanese guards – and from fellow PoWs desperate for paper. "What did you do in the war, Grandad?" That’s a question being asked throughout the land as the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, but for one Sunderland man, it is an easy question to answer. Len Gibson justs sits his grandchildren – and great grandchildren – down and reads to them from his own book. Len’s moving story is told in his book without hyperbole and without great emotion. But the very fact of the understated nature of the telling of the hardships, the torture, the agonies of operations without anaesthetic, of sickness, of tragedy, death and... yes, occasional laughter... make this simple tale very well worth reading.