Old Eastbournian
Giving hope to refugee children While researching the life of David Anable (Wargrave 1953–57), archivist Paul Jordan came across a newspaper article that David had written in 1960 concerning the fate of children displaced from Eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War.
David’s 1960 article in the Express & Echo
M any refugees had little choice but to stay in what were known as ‘Displaced Persons’ camps, and there was a vast number of children who had very little opportunity to have any sort of holiday. The plight of these children was recognised by OEs David Anable, Roger Catchpole (Wargrave 1952–58) and Michael Crick (Wargrave 1952–57), who were all by then Cambridge under - graduates. With the support of several others, they established a ‘holiday camp’ for refugee children in Austria in 1960. A similar camp had been set up in Germany in the late 1950s. The United Nations Association found a suitable site, close to the village of Ubelbach, on which to set up the camp, The accom- modation, an Alpine hut, consisted of a small kitchen, living room and a bedroom with 14 bunks where the refugee boys slept. David and the others slept outside in tents. A considerable amount of work needed to be done prior to the arrival of the children and the group did much of the practical building work themselves and spent their own holiday time earning money in order to contribute to the project. In the newspaper article, published in Exeter’s Express & Echo on 7 October 1960, David wrote: ‘Two of us became schoolmasters, one of us became a farm labourer, another a hospital attendant and another drove a bakery van around Jersey.’ But the most pressing problem was the lack of transport. The issue was resolved when they were lent two Bedford vans; one a Dormobile belonging to a woman in Jersey, the other a van from the Heathcoat factory in Tiverton. The vans travelled through France, Switzerland and Germany on their way to Austria, well
laden with sports kits, tents and cooking apparatus. The Austrian branch of the UNA selected boys from refugee camps over a large area, their ages ranging from 7 to 15 and whose countries of origin included Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Some of them were Volksdeutsche, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The article continued: ‘They were all delightfully full of fun, and in spite of their varied homes and nationalities, they settled in together happily… to see how happy they were and how much they delighted in everything, the food in particular, the freedom and open spaces, the compan- ionship… made every shilling spent worthwhile’. There were plenty of activities in which the boys could participate; playing football and badminton, hiking, cave exploring and raspberry picking with trips to swimming pools and neighbouring towns. The experience seems to have had an effect on Roger Catch - pole who, in 1963, helped run a holiday for the first group of Tibetan children to arrive at Pestalozzi Children’s Village in Sussex. Following a visit by the Dalai Lama’s sister to the village, Roger went to Nepal for two years as a volunteer to help implement an UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) project to build a new village for 600 refugees. Roger also gave a talk to women students at Chelsea College of Physical Education in Eastbourne which led to them running camps for refugee girls in Austria. The initiative of setting up the Austrian camp was very much of its time, in response to the post-war refugee crisis. Could David and his companions have imagined that more than 60 years later, the plight of refugees throughout the world would continue to be a major social and ethical issue? David Anable’s obituary is on page 112.
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This page has been sponsored by Vicky Henley (Nugent 1975–77)
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