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Vera Beljakov spent time there during the 1940s.
She lived with her parents, Boris and Marianne
and grandfather Alexander Beljakov, at the Edwinstowe POW camp
for 2 years - 1948-49. Boris was the Camp translator and liaisons person.
Here, Vera, a former Sunday Times, Johannesburg, feature writer, recalls those childhood days.
My childhood in Edwinstowe POW camp - 1948
Few people remember Prisoner-of-War camps with much love or affection, but I do.
It was 1948, I was 4 years old and I arrived at Edwinstowe Camp.
Admittedly, by the time my mother brought me and my paternal grandfather from war-ravaged Germany to join my father in Edwinstowe, it was more of an agriculture camp with military security.
The inmates, from East European soldiers to former Russian Tzarist officers, were sent out to do field labour.
My father (Boris Beljakov) had obtained employment at the camp as an interpreter/ translator/liaison-man between the British camp authorities and the POW, who were now guarded farm labourers.
Most were by now stateless, and had no country to return to after WWII, since their homelands were now Soviet Union territories, most were East Europeans and spoke a variety of languages from the Baltic North to Southern Ukraine.
My father spoke most of these languages, including good English.
The spell of Sherwood
Being a child, I , of course didn't understand all this but fell under the spell of the forest, right on the doorstep of our prefabricated hut.
For a child this was paradise.
The Major Oak was a major event in my life, and grandpa (Alexander Beljakov) and I visited the revered tree each day - his constitutional walk and me wildly weaving around in and out of bushes.
I didn't have much to do with the "prisoners", as food was brought from the canteen to our hut or mother cooked, because some communist POWs (who nevertheless refused to go back home to Stalin's workers' paradise) were downright nasty, calling us the "unslaughtered bourgeoisie" (middle-class that ought to have been finished off by the Bolshevik Revolution).
But when you're 4, these poisonous insults fall on deaf and uncomprehending ears.
Photo gallery
See pictures from then and now.
Life in camp
At night the grown-ups went out to the camp hall to play bridge, "skat", chess, backgammon and other adult card games, while I was left alone in our hut, with strict instructions not to open the door to anyone, otherwise the Big Bad Wolf of Sherwood Forest would carry me away to his den.
Sadly, one shouldn't tell small children such scary tales, as they tend to believe
the warning verbatum....so, in terror, I'd crawl under the bed to sleep, so that the
Big Bad Wolf wouldn't find me should he break in.
My parents were very puzzled by such behaviour, but I refused to let them in on my logic.
Birthday delights
There were, however, many happy time - such as my 5th birthday when I received a
tricycle and what sense of freedom, racing around the camp, trying to imitate the leather-clad military policeman roaring around on their big black motorbike.
The Military Policeman spoilt me rotten with boiled sweets which I had never seen before coming from starvation-ridden Germany.
Moreover, Military Policeman were called on the frequent occasions when I climbed a tree and couldn't get down again.
While Military Policeman consoled a crying me with a chocolate, once he was out of earshot, I'd get severely smacked for my adventures and inconveniencing nice militiamen.
Education
Time came, when the Village Policeman arrived to inform my Mother that she was breaking the law by keeping me at home and away from Infant School.
She offered to do "Home Teaching" which didn't go down too well, considering that she couldn't speak English in the first place (well...just a little to get by), but not enough to educate me into becoming a little English Person.
Next day, under severe duress, she - with me in tow - were marched by the Village Policeman to the Infant School, with my mother weeping all the way - and me bouncing joyfully along, ready for the next adventure called "English School", which would make a change from climbing trees and getting whacked for it.
"School" was great - I wish I could remember my teacher's name back in 1948, but on Day One she gave me a black crayon and asked me to colour in a cat's outline - easy, since being a lonely child, I spent hours entertaining myself with crayons and pencils at home during bad weather.
From there I graduated, under the influence of my eager classmates, to drawings on the corridor walls. My speciality: Robin Hood, Maid Marion & Big Bad Wolf.
Although I seemed to be the only child in the camp, there must have been one or two other camp boys, for they taught me how to throw mud at wet sheets on washing lines - punishment was awesome - I only did it twice....contact with boys was banned.
Back to the forest
When not getting into trouble, I played in Sherwood Forest, acted out in fantasy dramas of being "Maid Marion" and forced Grandpa to pretend he is "Robin Hood" - for an old Russian steel-merchant, born way back in 1875 in Riga, on the Baltic Sea, all this must have been enormously strange, but he indulged me.
All I really remember was that it was the happiest time of my life, and I think my parents and grandpa also loved Edwinstowe and Sherwood Forest.
Yes, goblin, dwarfs, fairies, elfins, wood nymphs and sprites really did live there in Sherwood Forest - I swear I saw them! Pity that adults couldn't see them too ......but they had lost the wonders of childhood perceptions.
Don't look back in anger
We were very sorry to leave when the camp closed down, and sad-heartedly moved to Mansfield, then Sheffield, later Nottingham.
I have never been back to Edwinstowe but cherish my dear happy memories of the camp and its mysterious forest.
Postscript
Later my parents parted and subsequently my mother married a former POW from Edwinstowe, Alexander Makarovich.
No one in the camp knew at that time that he was from a noble Russian family, fought in WW1, the Russian Revolution, the Russian Civil War as a junior officer and was holder of the St George Cross for Bravery under fire.
His grandfather fought in Napoleonic Wars in Russia in 1812.
And then, in one life-time from a nobleman Hussar Officer in the Life Guards to a stateless person and potato digger in the fields of Edwinstowe until he moved to Nottingham and started life all over again : from factory watchman to private tutor to students at Nottingham University.
Your memories
Do you remember
the Edwinstowe camp or Vera Beljakova? Tell us about your memories. Or contact Vera direct.
More Memories
My wife is a keen Radio Nottingham listener and she told me about the former POW camp item on Breakfast with Karl.
We are both members of St John's Church in Worksop and last year a 100 year old member died; her name was Dorothy and I used to visit her regularly.
I conducted her funeral service in St John's and I told the congregation about her long friendship with Werner, who was a former German POW at the Norton Cuckney camp near Edwinstowe.
Just after the war in Europe ended the then vicar of St John's asked the congregation if anyone would be willing to invite locally based German POWs to Sunday Lunch.
Dorothy said she would and so began what became a lifelong friendship with Werner.
He came every Sunday from then on until he returned to Germany; he walked the 4/5 miles from Norton Cuckney, though later on Dorothy bought him a 2nd hand bicycle which made things a lot easier for him.
After he was repatriated Werner was ordained priest into the Lutheran Church; later he became a Professor of Theology.
I met him on several occasions because he visited Worksop many times and Dorothy visited him in Germany.
Werner would love to have been well enough to make the journey to Worksop to attend Dorothy's funeral; he is now in his mid eighties and we are still in touch.
Peter Moorhouse
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