Mrs Merle Hesp, widow of FEPoW Harry, with pupils from Pensby High School for Girls
A new website has been launched as a resource for teachers, thanks to research conducted at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
Meg Parkes, a Research Assistant at the School, has been recording the history of Far East Prisoners of War (FEPoW) and memories of 62 FEPoWs as part of her MPhil dissertation conducted over the past four years, which have been transformed into a website for secondary school pupils.
A grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded to Meg, together with Professor Geoffrey Gill, Professor of International Medicine at the School, helped to catalogue the interviews.
The website was launched to teachers to introduce the material across secondary school curriculum with Pensby High School for Girls, Wirral, being the first to take part.
As part of the Captive Memories project and in collaboration with the school, a FEPoW Bamboo Garden was created at Ness Botanic Gardens which highlights the life-saving nature of bamboo to the prisoners.
Paul Cook, Curator at Ness with Professor Gill from LSTM