I chose what was then a relatively little-studied subject of UK prisoner of war camps during the second World War. At the time the 50-year rule had just lapsed so many a happy hour was spent in Kew's National Archives studying and documenting WW2 official top secret documents which had just been released.
Although the history of the British in German POW camps is more familiar to us, not least through popular films such as The Great Escape and The Wooden Horse, less well known is the fate of the Germans and Italians, their treatment and the escape attempts in camps based in the UK.
Indeed the subject was so bereft at the time of books on the subject that much of my dissertation had to be derived from primary sources such as; official documents, site visits such as to Easton Grey Camp based at Malmesbury, Wiltshire and personal interviews across England, Jersey and France.
With this in mind I thought I would mention this piece on the BBC website which has an interesting, albeit rather brief article, on this very subject.
