'WE ARE LUCKY TO BE ALIVE'

DOROTHY Selmes recalls the fear she and her family felt during their three years in captivity as prisoners of war.

Mrs Selmes, her husband and three-month-old son, were taken prisoner in North China during the Second World War.

They were living in Tientsin when war broke out and were interned at Weihsien in 1943.

"It was awful. My husband and I would starve ourselves to feed the baby. It was very stressful and frightening," she said.

Mrs Selmes kept a diary during her years at the camp.

"I wrote it in short hand so the Japanese wouldn't be able to read it," she said. "Towards the end of the war we were so weak, the sweat was pouring off us. We were lucky we came out alive."

The famous runner Eric Liddell was also a POW at Weihsien and Mrs Selmes remembers him as a 'wonderful man.'

"He used to take the youngsters for sport, he was a good man. Unfortunately he died in the camp of a brain tumour."

Mrs Selmes, aged 81, disagrees with the people who say the bomb should never have been dropped.

"We couldn't possibly have survived if they had not dropped the bomb," she said.

It wasn't until October 1945 that the camp was liberated by the American forces.

"It was a fantastic day. Some of the ladies fainted, we all rushed out of the gates and the Japanese couldn't do anything about it."

In 1988, Mrs Selmes attended an emotional reunion of PoWs from Weihsien.

Now, she has joined the Association of British Civilian Internees for the Far East Region and their fight to K in compensation.

She said: "I'm so determined that I'll do my part to get compensation. What we are asking from the Japanese government is £14,000 for every prisoner."

Mrs Selmes, who lives in Beach Road, Weston, added: "You never recover from the war, you just have to carry on."

Pictured is Mrs Selmes with her son Hugh Wallington, both were prisoners of war in China.

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