A LARGELY unknown part of Dorchester’s rich history is brought to light in a new book written by Dorchester historian and writer Brian Bates.

Mr Bates has written Dorchester's Great War Prison Camp about the thousands of prisoners of war who would find themselves temporary residents of Dorset’s county town.

"I think when I first decided to do the book so few people in Dorchester knew about the camp.

"When I went to the Remembrance service at the cenotaph someone said to me there was also one in the afternoon at the German War Memorial in Fordington.

"There's a real legacy of remembrance for it."

Mr Bates, of Garfield Road, said there were some 'serendipitous' occasions that led to him producing the book.

This included a woman from Corfe Mullen contacting Brian after she saw him on television talking about his previous book and a photo was show of the camp.

"The woman phoned me up and said 'that's my grandfather'.

"She had no idea he was in the Dorchester Prisoner of War camp until after the war when she heard him speaking English and he said 'I learnt it in Dorchester'.

"There are a number of lovely little stories like this that come out in the book."

On August 10, 1914, a group of 18 men alighted from a train at Dorchester South railway station. They were bound for what would become one of Britain’s largest POW camps, located in the former Royal Artillery Barracks, now the Grove Trading Estate.

Initially, the arrivals were civilian internees, but by the end of 1915 the camp was exclusively military.

Mr Bates said: "The book describes the camp and what life was like.

"The other half of it is how the local population reacted to it."

Mr Bates added that initially Dorchester's townsfolk viewed them with a mixture of distain, fear and curiosity, but as the war progressed for many the relationship changed.

Prisoners were put to work in the town and on surrounding farms which resulted in many incidents, some of bravery, some of foolishness and some humorous.

In one case a woman from Woodsford was prosecuted for selling port wine to a prisoner and in another one of the prisoners was rewarded for saving the life of a British pilot whose aircraft had crashed in flames.

In size, the camp was as big as the town of Wareham at that time and it had responsibility for a large number of smaller camps covering a large area, including Warwickshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and Cornwall.

Within the camp there were all kinds for employment, services and entertainments for the men. It had its own post office and a printing works, which produced the camp newspaper the Deutsche Blätter. Then there was the bakery, which in April, 1919 was baking bread for 4,500 men.

To combat boredom the prisoners created all kinds of clubs, and sport was very high on the agenda, so much so that a special sports field was created on Poundbury hillfort, with football and hockey pitches, and an athletics track.

There was also a camp theatre, which put on over 200 plays and several orchestras and bands. The library contained over 900 books, some donated by Thomas Hardy on one of his visits to the camp.

Despite all these diversions there were the inevitable escapes, of which there were several. One, by Otto Koehn, intriguingly called “The German Jack in the Box.”

When the men were repatriated they left behind a legacy, which consists of a war memorial, in Fordington Cemetery, where the 45 men who died in the cmap after a flu epidemic were buried.

*Brian’s book will be launched on Saturday November 28 between 2pm and 5pm, at St George’s Church Hall, Fordington.

All are welcome and there will be the opportunity to see a remarkable film of everyday life inside the camp.

There will also be an exhibition and refreshments. Proceeds from the book are being donated to the West Dorset Women’s Refuge.

Copies of the book are available from Brian Bates by calling 01305 263824, emailing brianbates@trayfoot.co.uk), online and from local outlets.

CONTACT ME:

t: 01305 830973

e: joanna.davis

@dorsetecho.co.uk

twitter: @DorsetEchoJo