Surveying the site of Featherstone camp

SOME time ago a reader was asking for information about the prisoner-of-war camp at Featherstone. In 1939, before I became an architect, I was a tea boy working for Cackett, Burns, Dick & Mackellar in Newcastle. I went with one of the architects to stay for a week in Haltwhistle while we surveyed the site.
We enjoyed picnics while working and watched a stag on the edge of the forest; at that time we had no idea there was going to be a war. I went off to university shortly afterwards, joined the university air squadron 18 months later, then served with Bomber Command Canada and flew gliders for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) at Arnhem and during the D-Day landings.
- Douglas Fennell, Frodsham, Warrington, Cheshire.