John Doyle, Changi. (Book Notes).

Scott, Douglas T.

ABC Books, 289 pp., $29.95 paperback.

This is a book about memory, how memories haunt the present. It is a book about imprisonment, both physical and mental. It is a story in television script of six young men, ages 19 to 22, who are prisoners of the Japanese in Singapore in 1942 to 1945. Only one, Gordon, the eldest, has been in battle. The others arrived in Singapore in time for the surrender and all they will ever experience of war will be three and a half years of brutal captivity. There are no medals for the fortitude which they and others displayed but they should be honoured no less than those who display their medals for courage under fire.

This script of the six-part television series Changi may put off those who prefer reading a straight line narrative. Reading a television script that moves back and forth in time over half a century is not the same as reading a three-act play that covers a much lesser time span.

At the beginning we are introduced to the six principal characters: Bill (19), a natural academic; Gordon (22) the eldest, battle-tested; Eddie (20), a natural smartarse; Curley (20), good-natured though illiterate; David (21), well-educated, upper North Shore; Tom (19), the youngest and most gullible of the six. No one of them is the protagonist; they are all principle performers. Each of them has his particular test of courage and endurance in one of the six interlinking stories.

Each man is scarred by his wartime experiences.

Moving forward in time we see how they cope when they return home and when they meet for what may be their final reunion in 1999.

But their memories continue to haunt them. Imprisoned by memory, the women whom they marry find they, too, are imprisoned. Tom's wife, Joyce, complains' `He was a prisoner for three and a half years ... I've been a prisoner for forty three and a half years.'

Some readers may be disappointed that no scenes of the Burma--Thailand Railway are included. But this is a representation of Changi, not the railway. Budgetary limitations made it impossible to depict on television the suffering of the men who built that railway of death, or to build a set that would convey the horror of Hellfire Pass.

This is a book which should be read by those who watched the series on television and by those who gave up watching after the first episode. Reading the script, the former will see things they may have missed in the screening, and the latter will realise they should have stayed with it and will resolve to watch it if it is ever shown again on television or in a cinema.

The author, John Doyle, has made a valuable contribution to Changi POW literature. He has created a new way of seeing and understanding the prisoner of war experience.