From the Luftwaffe to Lincolnshire

The story of a real-life German prisoner of war in Lincolnshire has inspired a new novel about conflicts both personal and political. Yusef Sayed spoke with author Matt Graydon about his family’s county connections and the process of transforming little-known historical episodes into an expansive fictional narrative.

Telling the story of Oskar Bachmann – a German boy coming of age in the lead-up to the Second World War and disturbed not only by the changing mood of the nation but the toll that his father’s abuse has taken on him during childhood – Leaving Fatherland is a novel that spans decades and continents.

Driven to study psychiatry in order to better understand the human motivations towards violence and scapegoating, often towards those closest to us physically and emotionally, Oskar is given the opportunity to enter university abroad in New York before circumstances force him home to take up duties in the Luftwaffe.

Forming unique bonds of friendship and encountering characters whom he cannot be sure are trustworthy, Oskar struggles to maintain his ethical principles and passion for learning as he reluctantly finds himself drawn into a world at war and facing answers to his questions that he could never have imagined.

Many of the incidents in the story were inspired by the life of Werner Doehr, a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 camera operator during World War Two who was shot down in the North African desert and eventually relocated to Lincolnshire as a prisoner of war. His nephew, Matt Graydon, grew up hearing many stories about Werner’s life at Pingley Camp, near Brigg.

He says: “I was born in Hampshire but certainly as a child I made many visits to Lincolnshire with my mum and dad. There were other family members who lived in Lincolnshire their whole lives. I always had a connection there, and my mum would always talk about it a lot. Growing up, I always had Kirton and other parts of Lincolnshire in my mind.

“Pingley was mentioned quite a few times. But it wasn’t really until I started doing my research for the novel that I spent a greater amount of time just trying to learn a bit more about the camps.

“My mum visited Pingley Camp as a child. My grandmother sent sewing kits over to Germany, so they had some of the POWs from Pingley Camp come over for Christmas dinner, they did that several years.

My grandmother would get to know them, she would give them sewing kits to send back to their own mothers in Germany.

“Mum used to talk about some of the gifts they would make as well. You could buy things from the camp, so they’d make things from an old tin tray, or anything they had available. She also commented on how well kept the lawns and flowerbeds were.”

During his postal rounds in the neighbouring villages, Werner met Roslyn, Matt’s aunt, and it was through this bond of love that a Lincolnshire and German family were united – although the hostilities born of the international conflict would understandably filter into everyday life in the rural village.

“I always got the sense that actually there was quite a friendly bond between the camp and some of the local community. That said, I also knew that Werner did receive a level of abuse from certain individuals. I think it was a minority but there were certainly people who felt some animosity towards him when they knew who he was and where he was from, and the fact that he’d taken part in the war.

“The scene with the Kirton Lindsey Women’s Institute, that’s all a true story. And I’m hopefully going to go and give a talk to them some time [this year]. It would be quite nice to go back and do it. Werner did it, it’s in the book, and it will be quite nice for me to go and give a talk there too.”

WRITING PROCESS
Just as key scenes in the novel parallel those in Werner’s own life, the character of Oskar also reflects the passion for books and learning that Matt has felt from a young age.

Having enjoyed composing poems at school and reading widely, Matt had long desired to write a novel. After years of working in journalism, and researching the background of Werner’s life in his spare time, the time came in 2018 to begin turning this family history into engaging fiction.

Matt explains: “The way I would describe it, there’s two ways of writing books. I started off doing it in what people call the ‘pantser’ way, which is not planning the whole book out in advance, and just starting to write. What I found was that I had some scenes in my mind that I knew I could write and wanted to get down on paper, which I did quite early on. They became almost pivotal points in the story.

“I then had to do a lot more research, I realised that the information I had to hand was no way near enough to create an entire novel. That meant researching, writing something, quite often rewriting it – and the book then started to be stitched together. I did quite a lot of work in terms of moving certain scenes around. In the end it’s relatively linear but it wasn’t like that originally, I had looked at doing it differently.

Then by the time you’ve got the manuscript to getting it published, is another year pretty much.”

While references to great literature, from Oscar Wilde and Herman Hesse to Ernest Hemingway, are threaded through Leaving Fatherland, Matt’s story was inspired more by reading history books and the support of others passionate about the subject and the craft of writing than any specific novels.

“There’s a book called A Child of Hitler by Alfons Heck, which was really helpful in terms of understanding what it was like to grow up in Nazi Germany. There were some other books about the Luftwaffe, and the use of language in Nazi Germany. I read quite a few books to better understand the time period.

“In terms of crystallising the book, what was more useful was just talking to other historical fiction novelists and being involved in that community. I’m a member of a writing group here locally, I also have some good connections now both with historians and historical fiction novelists. It was that feedback and interaction with other people interested in the topics that really helped.”

Matt was also able to learn more about the life of prisoners who lived on Pingley Camp during visits to the county in recent years.

“More recently it’s been really nice to come back to the county. I visited, both with my wife and my daughter, in researching parts of the book and just getting a more recent sense of things. I spoke to and visited Brigg Heritage Centre. They had some information which was helpful, [but] that was more after I’d written things. I did a lot of online research, so I found some pictures from across the years. There were some aerial pictures of the camp and pictures of some of the old buildings. And there were a couple of prisoners of war in the camp. So I tried to build a sense of what it was like there.”

CORRESPONDENCES
If Matt’s extensive research has given the narrative a credible historical feel, there is also a level of journalistic detail that would seem in keeping with his earlier career. But the vivid scene-setting suggests the influence of film too.

“I actually think in pictures. What I often find I’m doing, as I’m writing I’m seeing a picture and then trying to almost describe that picture through my writing – rather than just focusing on the words.

“I love movies, I spend a lot of time in the cinema and we as a family go to the cinema quite a lot. I think that’s definitely an influence.”

Werner would go on to be a teacher and his family eventually moved to Germany. Although he and Roslyn have since died, Matt has renewed his correspondence with his extended family as a result of writing the book.

He says: “I’m in regular contact with their children. Three of them are still alive, unfortunately my cousin Peter, who was very helpful with the book, died a couple of years ago. I’m most regularly in contact now with my cousin Hannah, who lives in Berlin. The book has spurred a new relationship. It’s quite nice now, because she has many fond memories of Lincolnshire as well, she was there a lot as a child.”

HISTORICAL THREADS
The process has also inspired Matt to continue writing novels and he is currently at work on his second, which is similarly inspired by real historical events.

“Some of it’s set in a similar period, post-war. It’s more of a historical thriller, based on another true story.

Back in 1946, the War Office tried to take over a big area of land in west Wales, to convert it into a military base, and there was a huge local protest. You had teachers and ministers who were up in arms.

That’s the backdrop for the story. My protagonist has a Welsh father but he’s working for the War Office in London and becomes part of this.”

There is also, then, a common thread in exploring the complexities of parent-child relationships. While Oskar’s story is one of trying to fathom the reasons for his father’s cruelty and distance in a society growing more intolerant, the connection between Werner and his own father is reflected more positively in their shared vocation in the service of democratic ideals.

“He taught at the secondary modern in Kirton and then he went to Oxford, and then he went back to Germany after that. It’s quite fitting because his father was a Social Democrat in Germany in the 1920s and set up several free schools. There’s actually a school named in his honour. There’s a history of being in the education sector there, so certainly Werner took his inspiration from his father in that regard.”

Leaving Fatherland is published by Cranthorpe Millner and available now through the Lincolnshire Life shop at www.lincolnshirelife.co.uk. Until 16th February receive a special 30% discount by applying coupon code LLFEBBOOK at checkout.

For more information on Matt’s writing, visit his website www.mattgraydon.com

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