Changi Prison

Changi prison Singapore was completed just in time to house Royal Air Force prisoners when the Japanese captured the city in 1942.

When Singapore was retaken in 1945 the following words were found scratched on the wall of a cell. The author was not identified and is assumed to have been executed.

If I must face the firing squad
Though harm I never did
Teach me to love them still my God
As I by thee am bid.

If I must die a lowly spy
No spy was I no never
Stay in my heart o God of mine
And love them more than ever.

Forgive them all the tortures done
My thirst and my starvation
For who has suffered more than thee
Who died for our salvation.

The above appeared I the Cape Times, Cape Town, in 1945, and I never saw any further reference to it.

Does anbody know anything about the above. It seems sad that it should have disappeared without knowing who the author was.

About Me...

Vincent Lovegrove

I was born in Cape Town on 22nd July 1929 and educated at St Georges Grammar School.
When the Nationalists came to power I joined the British South Africa Police in Rhodesia when you visited that country to see the Zimbabwe Ruins. Now you visit Zimbabwe to see the Rhodesian Ruins.

On 28th November 1953 I married Marjorie Patricia Lord, a 19 year old Rhodesian. We had six sons. One is now in California, USA, one in Victoria, Vancouver Island, one in Pietermaritzburg, one in Johannesburg, one in Pretoria, and the youngest has recently moved to Barrydale in the Cape, having spent the previous 27 years in Angola and Mozambique.

I resigned from the Police on 30th November 1962 with rank of Inspector because I saw the collapse coming and returned to Cape Town where I spent most of my working life in the Life Insurance industry.

My wife walked out In April 1976 and right up until her death on Christmas morning 2006 was never able to tell me why.

I divorced her on 20th December 1978 and never remarried. From 21st December 1978 until 30th July 2009 I lived with Hazel Anne Petrig who was 23 at the outset. Again I was dumped and am still waiting to hear the reason.

I am now living with my fourth son, Neil, some 25 kilometers from the centre of Pretoria. He owns 11 hectares with the house built on the lower slopes of the Magaliesburg Mountain range. He owns an industrial fencing business involving predominantly perimeter fencing of the mines
I now occupy myself with gardening and will be breeding poultry which has always been an interest of mine but not possible in the City. I have never in my life had this much time to myself.