The camp was heavily barbed wired, sides back and front. Being in a City, life brought its complications which we had to overcome.
Daily working parties left the camp under guard for various types of work and the normal rule laid down was that parties of 5 men and over had to walk in the road as an orderly squad with their guard(s) on the pavement but small parties of four and under were allowed to walk with their guard on the pavement in an orderly manner.
On one occasion a small group of three men and their guard proceeded through the City Centre with German civilians passing to and fro, and on this occasion along the pavement approaching them was a well dressed German matron with her two adolescent attractive daughters. On passing, one of the P.o Ws made a rather ribald remark concerning one of the daughter, could he get her back to camp.
The German Frau in perfect English remonstrated in no uncertain manner to the p.o.W and guard and seemingly the incident passed, how ever several days later the same group of P.o.W; were again in the same vicinity, and the same German Frau approached and on passing deliberately shouldered into the P.o.W in question sending him off his balance. In an instance there was a scene as the Mother accused the P.o.W of barging into her. She introduced herself to the Guard as the wife of the Chief of the City Police and the Camp would be hearing more about this.
Within a few hours a formal complaint was served on the Camp Commandant concerning his British P.o.Ws behaviour on the City streets.
After further enquiry a new rule came into force. In future all P.o.Ws whether singly or not had to 'walk in' the gutter with their guard on the pavement and further more all P.o.Ws when out in the City, proceeding to work and returning, had to cast their eyes down 2 metres in front 'In a dejected manner'.
This new set of rules was embarrassing for small parties making them very obvious in a busy City Street. Our British Camp Leader protested but to no avail. After careful thought however he hit on a plan of action that he thought may do the trick.
He instructed that all P.o.Ws going and returning from work had to wear their best "battle dress" (by this time we had been issued with spare clothing from the Red X) This instruction was for small groups (under 5 men), they had to polish their boots and brass badges and carry themselves as smartly as on a home parade ground.
In 1942 new uniforms arrived via the Red Cross
The result had its effect in about 7 day for the German civilians and military noticed the difference between the smart P.o.Ws and their own guards who in the main had soup stained uniforms and unpolished jack boots.
The new rules were dropped within about 7 days which proved that a tactful passive protest worked.