Is it true that the prisoners of war at Colditz had batmen?

QUESTION Is it true that the prisoners of war at Colditz had batmen?

Colditz Castle was notorious for its use as a German high-security PoW camp — Oflag IV-C — in World War II.

Allied officers who’d attempted several escapes from other camps were housed at the impressive pile on the River Mulde near Leipzig. The expectation was that they could never flee such a fortress.

Under the Geneva Convention, officers had a right to have a batman, called an orderly in prison camps. At Colditz, senior officers had an orderly apiece, and junior officers one per mess, performing duties such as cooking, tidying, cleaning and boot polishing.

The social divide between officer and servant was strictly upheld. For recreation, orderlies played football but were not allowed to take part in a cricket-like game called stoolball. Orderlies were not invited to take part in escape attempts.

Experiences were mixed. ‘Polishing an officer’s buttons beat digging spuds any time,’ said Colditz inmate Lance Bombardier Norman Rubenstein. Yet the high-handed treatment by some officers rankled and almost led to mutiny.

Douglas Bader, a flying ace despite having both legs amputated, treated his Scots batman Alex Ross abysmally. Bader had to be carried piggyback down a spiral staircase to be bathed every day, then back up again — dripping wet. ‘I don’t think all the time I knew him he said ‘please’ or ‘thank you’,’ recalled Ross.

In 1943, Ross had the chance to return home in a prisoner exchange. Joy turned to anguish when he told Bader he was leaving. ‘No you’re bloody not,’ said Bader. ‘Look here, Ross, you came here as my lackey and you will stay with me as my lackey until we are both liberated.’

Gerald Taylor, Loughborough, Leics.

QUESTION Where is Britain’s oldest hotel?

This is the Lowther in Goole, East Yorkshire, a hotel since 1824. It was put up by engineering firm Jolliffe and Banks which was excavating docks in the town, on the River Ouse, after signing a contract for this purpose in 1822.

Sir Edward Banks and his partner Hylton Jolliffe were the builders of the Waterloo, Southwark and London bridges and worked on the construction of Sheerness naval dockyard in Kent.

The hotel was originally called The Banks Arms. It was sold to Aire & Calder Brewers in 1828 and renamed after the death of company chairman Sir John Lowther in about 1836. It has been the Lowther Hotel ever since.

The Lowther only gained the ‘Britain’s oldest’ title in October 2016 when The Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter, which had operated as a hotel since 1769, burned down following a gas leak.

Sheila Day, Castlefield, West Yorks.

QUESTION Which are the best and worst attempts at the ‘difficult second album’?

Terence Trent d’Arby, a New York-born London resident, had a huge hit with his 1987 debut album Introducing The Hardline According To Terence Trent d’Arby. It was No 1 in the UK and spawned Top 10 singles If You Let Me Stay, Wishing Well and Sign Your Name.

His 1989 follow-up Neither Fish Nor Flesh flopped, mostly due to his own hubris. D’Arby upset record-buyers by claiming that Introducing… was ‘better than [the Beatles’] Sgt. Pepper’ and claiming ‘I will be as massive as Madonna, as massive as Michael Jackson’. Critics thought it self-indulgent.

The album barely troubled the charts and sent d’Arby retreating to LA.

Difficult second album syndrome, or sophomore slump, is sometimes explained by the cliche that you have a lifetime to make your first album and just six months to produce your second.

A good example was when The Strokes burst onto the scene in 2001 with Is This It, which included their rollicking song Last Nite. The world seemed to be their oyster but, contracted to record another album within a few months, they came up with Room On Fire, a dull carbon copy of the original.

Justin Hawkins’s band The Darkness arrived in 2003 with the joyful debut Permission To Land. Overblown, with pomp, camp, great guitar licks, catsuits and spaceships, it felt reminiscent of Queen’s A Night At The Opera.

But the outfit broke up after the sophomore release One Way Ticket to Hell… And Back, in which the band had descended into self-parody.

However, The Darkness have since reformed and released more albums.

The Stone Roses’ eponymous 1989 debut album was considered the seminal ‘Madchester’ album. Contractual wranglings led to a five-year hiatus before their dull Second Coming album came out.

On the other hand, Blur began as a dodgy indie-pop outfit with Leisure in 1991, which spawned successful single There’s No Other Way. After a dispiriting tour of the U.S. they channelled their feelings into the stellar Modern Life Is Rubbish, inventing Britpop in the process.

Bob Dylan’s eponymous debut was an earnest rendition of folk, blues and gospel songs, so few were prepared for the brilliant The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, featuring A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, seminal protest songs Blowing In The Wind and Masters Of War, and twisted love songs Girl From The North Country and Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.

Finally, there is Nirvana’s grungy mess of a 1989 album, Bleach, which was followed by 1991 alt-rock masterpiece Nevermind, which gave us Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Keith Flint, Godalming, Surrey.