The only male member of staff at the Community, when I first went there, was a young German, and what he contributed to the well-being of the boys I never knew, as what he really enjoyed was the company of the young female staff. He played happily around with one after the other, generally giving a term to each. My arrival coincided with the finish of his time with the attractive red-haired young woman who was responsible for the physical training and sport of the Community. Heiner was pleased to see a new face.


It was all very mild and harmless and compared with today's standards would be considered extraordinarily dull, but he was young and amusing and it was enjoyable just holding hands in a cinema, leaving go of hands to have coffee and fish and chips in the cinema cafe and then more holding of hands going back on the top of a bus.


At the outbreak of war in 1939, he went back to Germany and we never heard of him again: he was simply swept into the maelstrom of war.

c. 1936-1939.