A FEW SNAPSHOTS OF WEIHSIEN

1

ARRIVAL AT WEIHSIEN

American friend (since repatriated) welcoming British arrivals, saying as she flourished a large carving knife – "Oh folks it's fun – I'm cutting bread, and it's just like camp." Fun in Weihsien lurks round corners and is found in unexpected places. Fun is doing things one has never done before , doing without things we had deemed necessities. Fun, --- in turning old clothes into new!

2

CHRISTMAS AT WEIHSIEN

The first Christmas toys and gifts made in camp for the children, Christmas decorations, (wherever did they come from?) parties for young folks with a Punch and Judy for the tinies - Christmas service in the Assembly Hall where small children could be seen hugging their gifts. The second Christmas promised little, but found a Christmas spirit that took no rebuff. Christmas, as usual with generous giving and a wonderful Christmas pudding made from the simplest ingredients. "Post early for Christmas" read the slogan on the pillar-box. "If I post a card to myself, will I really get it?" asked one small girl. "Try it and see" was the reply!

3

CONCENTRATION COLOUR AND CRAFT

... as seen in the two exhibitions held in the Assembly Hall, where exhibits of all kinds showed the skills an ingenuity exercised in making simple things for use in camp. "If you can't do what you like, like doing what you can", said a friend under Doctors orders to give up doing many things she enjoyed. In this spirit, the Camp has done wonderful work making gadgets and utensils of every description. Perhaps the most popular exhibit was the"Tower Brick Stove" – a model of a Camp stove complete with plans to build it yourself, a set of pots and pans and real cakes in the tiny oven. The beautiful art selection showed how some internees have used their leisure and contained some pictures more true to camp life than the Authorities appreciated! Plans for ideal homes set us all thinking and planning for future days of the new life ahead;

4

CHURCH PARADE

The Assembly Hall half filled with Scouts, Guides, Brownies and Cubs always made a deep impression and brought home the realisation of how much the Camp owes to youth. How well we have been served by the Scouts and Guides – what a desolate place it would have been without the laughter and games of children - - How many lessons of faith and friendliness. We have learned from tiny tots who know the Camp as their World and all the World their friend – how we have loved the bonnie Weihsien babies who have so well repaid the care bestowed upon them. God bless them all, when as Camp disperses they go into the outside World and carry with them impressions of friendship, co-operation and service formed in an Internment Camp in China.

Norah M. Busby
London Mission, Peking
August 4th, 1945.