A Wymington War Prisoner
Farm Work at Twopence a Day – Abominable Food
Pte Percy Fuller, Bedford Regiment, of New Wymington, has arrived home from Germany, where he has been a prisoner of war for 22 months. He was on farm work at 2d. a day as far east as Posen, and had a fairly good time as regards the conditions of prisoners of war generally. Parcels began to arrive from about three months after Pte Fuller was captured. He believes he received every parcel sent out to him, excepting those sent just before the Armistice and too late to reach him at Posen. The food provided by the Germans for the prisoners was abominable. The prisoners would steal out at night and “but” potatoes to make up for the lack of food given them by the authorities. If caught they were, of course, punished for having food which would otherwise be consumed by the Germans. Pte Fuller, who was a horse driver in civil life, was once ordered to go on a similar job at Prosen. Knowing he would have to get up at 3a.m. every day to look after the horse and then do a heavy day’s work, he denied all knowledge of horses. When made to attempt it, he bungled the harness and got it in a hopeless mess, and generally showed such “ignorance” of the work that he was taken off it and put on something else. Finding mowing too hard, he “accidentally” broke his scythe. By not knowing any skilled work he got in the fewest number of hours’ work possible. He prides himself on the way he was able to “swing the lead.”

Pte. Fuller’s brother, Sergt. Herbert Fuller, who was in the Army in South Africa before the recent war, came over to England and fought on the Western front, until, in 1916, he was killed. Another brother, Pte. A Fuller, formerly in the Territorials, was badly wounded in the mouth, and had to be discharged. He had had many narrow escapes of losing his life in bayonet charges. The remaining brother, Mr W Fuller, has been retained in civil life as a “key” man.