On the night when War was declared, 3rd of September '39, policemen arrived at our digs and asked us to come down to the police headquarters where we had to register.  Well we had registered before, but we had to hand in our registration books, we had to hand in our cameras, binoculars or anything else that could be used for spying

 

Then when the Germans marched into Belgium and Holland in the spring of 1940, Frank, myself and my father were interned, on the 16th of May, picked up at our place of work by detectives, taken home to pack a case and taken to the Town Hall in Leeds where we were all assembled and then taken by coach to some military barracks in Pontefract.  And we were in Pontefract for about 2 weeks I think, and then shipped to the Isle of Man, where they had taken over - in Douglas, the front in Douglas is all boarding houses (I think it still is I think).  The boarding houses were taken over by the military, the landladies were forced to move out, taking all the furniture except beds, and we were accommodated in those boarding houses, sleeping three, four to a room.  The whole area was surrounded by two strands of barbed wire which were patrolled by soldiers with rifles and bayonets.