One of the many interesting offerings by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne , at the current London Rare Book Fair , is the above l947 volume illustrated with watercolours , black and white sketches and line drawings made in the Changi prisoner of war camp.
A Londoner, Iris Parfitt was a teacher at Penang's exclusive St.George's School at the time Malay fell to the Japanese .
During the occupation, she was an internee in both the Changi and Sime Road camps. In Changi, she was chairman of the camp’s Entertainment Committee and played a key role in staging all kinds of entertainment in the camp.
"Capitalising on the variety of ages, races, nationalities, professions and social backgrounds of the internees, she put on magnificent entertainments, that were remembered as a great source of encouragement, joviality and entertainment "
The bookshop says Jail-bird jottings, 84 pp,priced at 750 pound , provides one of the most important published eyewitness accounts of daily life in the infamous Japanese internment camps. Her watercolours and sketches, with their accompanying explanatory notes, contain an enormous amount of highly detailed observation, and range in tone from the satirical to the deeply poignant.
(London .Books. Changi.)
