Founded 1980
Chair:        
Secretary: 
Treasurer: 

Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


Brendan O'Friel
ISLAND OF BARBED WIRE BY CONNERY CHAPPELL

When on holiday on the Isle of Man your editor read a recent book by the late Connery Chappell, a well-known journalist- and writer, of the internment on the Isle of Man, in World War Two,

I found the book a good read and worth recommending to colleagues,
 It is published by Corgy Books at £2,50p, It tells the story of the vast enterprise, in 1939 and 1940, for dealing with people suspected of being enemy aliens, The book concentrates on the impact on the Isle of Man of becoming the national internment camp but it also gives a much broader picture of the whole internment process,
 At one stage, in the early years of the war, there were 14,000 people interned on the Isle of Man, 

Unlike what happened during the First World War, When a large camp was constructed for detainees, the internees were very largely held in existing boarding houses and hotels enclosed within a wire perimeter security,

Readers of this article may themselves be concerned with the internment process as ordinary prisons were used for the holding of some detainees during the early stages,
 I was particularly interested to read about facilities provided for women in the south of the Isle of Man, at Port St Mary and Port Erin, I have strong family connections with Port St Mary and my family frequently holiday there, At one time around 4,000 women were detained in these two little towns in the south of the Island,

The camp at Port St Mary had appointed as its Commandant Divisional Detective Inspector CRM Cuthbert of Scotland Yard, As his deputy he had sent across a Miss Joan D Wilson who is described in the book as being from the Prison Commission Service and came to the island from her position as Deputy Governor of Walton Prison in Liverpool, The book describes her as a strong personality and she worked in this capacity on the Isle of Man for a year before returning to the Prison Service at Liverpool Prison,

After the war Miss Wilson apparently went to Germany as Controller of Womens Penal Establishments under the allied military government,
While I would commend the book to my readers I would also be interested to know of anyone who served with Miss Wilson, I imagine that she was not actually Deputy Governor of Walton Prison but was in charge of the womens unit there.

 F B O'Friel