Zetland Park Methodist Church Pastoral Letters
Cause to reflect
There was a very strange feeling as you drove up to
the entrance. The perimeter fence looked menacing and
somewhat foreboding, yet just beyond it, was evidence of
---- a garden centre! Then, partially hidden in the
undergrowth was a sign to a restaurant and gift shop!
Yet, when it was viewed on television, the sense of the
dank, haunting and even sinister was more than evident.
The garden centre and the shop were chirppy, and the food
on offer felt from another era, so maybe that authenticity
was not lost --- maybe there WAS something else to offer
--- but what?
A tour was advertised so we joined the ‘happy band of
pilgrims’ and were given an insight into something
that Britain never really talks about ---- it’s
always the ‘other side’ ---- and that is our
own ‘prisoner of war camps’. Yes, they did
exist here in the UK! But let me hasten to add there were
neither extermination chambers nor execution areas, but
there were huts --- rows upon rows of them, and their
history was fascinating! Attracted by an item on
BBC2’s ‘Restoration’, quite by accident
we came upon Harperley POW camp near Crook, Co. Durham. It
has now been given a preservation status of ‘an
ancient monument’ and will be cared for, so that
future as well as present generations can learn and
‘experience’ the situation. I’m left with
the all-important question – ‘WHY?’
According to our guide, the camp in turn, housed both
Italian and German prisoners, but it was the latter group
who left their mark and which has attracted so much
attention. Out of the dereliction came a wonderful insight
to the camp ‘life’. The prisoners had
constructed a theatre complete with orchestra pit and raked
seating. They had their own orchestra and players, and it
is reported entertained during the long, dreary months and
years. Yet it was the work of ONE person that saved the
entire area. His ‘God-given gift’ was that of
drawing and painting. Etched into the wall of one of the
many huts were wonderful pictorial illustrations of his
homeland. Just spending a short time there you can still
feel the pain and distress; the fear and the longing. Here
was no imprint of a dark, rampant desire for revenge ---
here was no war-tinged graffiti --- here was no cursing of
his captors. Rather a gentle reminder: demonstrations even
that there is far more to life than maiming and killing;
destruction and violence, and that God-given beauty of
nature and creature; plant and person far outweigh the mere
thought of conflict.
The tour concluded with us gathered around a small rose
garden which had been created by a former prisoner, who had
returned to Harperley, but died before the site was
re-opened for others to share and learn.
Tucked away at the edge of a gentle forest, this poignant
reminder of darker days, yet from it the resurrection of a
site that will both teach and give cause to reflect, and
maybe, just maybe stop someone else from ‘going over
the edge’.
Yet isn’t so strange, that we are perfectly willing
to learn from historical situations such as this, but come
to the history of our faith and the ‘faith
journey’, amply recorded and documented through
Scripture, scant regard is given ----------- Strange, is it
not, how our mind receives and acts!