BOOK REVIEW TENKO

Tenko, a name given to the most infamous Prisoner-of-War camps in the Second World War. It was in Japan and Margot Turner was imprisoned there with many other women. Tenko means a "roll call" and the prisoners had to stand there bowed all the time during the counting.

Margot Turner was 21-years old and a theatre sister in Singapore. The Japanese forces were overrunning Singapore in February 1942. Margot and 350 other people tried to escape. They boarded a cargo ship in Keppel harbour. The ship was hit by a shell. Military personnel and civilians swam to a nearby island. After few days Margot boarded a cargo ship again which was heading for Batavia. There she got torpedoed again. She was fighting for her life in shark-infested water constantly fighting dangerous currents. Margot and another nurse put a sort of a raft together. All the others on the raft died either from wounds or sun or dehydration.

Although she burned black and had blisters Margot survived by eating seaweed and drinking rainwater collected in her powder compact. She stated afterwards that she had always the feeling that a higher power was watching over her.

One day she was picked up by a Japanese destroyer. This started a three-and-a-half years of being a prisoner-of-war and lived and worked in Japanese camps. Although, her experiences were often incredible she kept morale high. She managed to keep the humour going which help a lot.

She remembered that they kept irritating the Japanese because we laughed a lot. The Japanese didn't know what we were laughing about.

In spite of the poor nourishment, hard labour, and lack of water the malaria-carrying mosquitoes and diseases, they kept going. The other irritating spontaneous call was "tenko". They had to bow very low in front of a Japanese guard. They had to line-up every time the Japanese shouted "tenko"

Margot got one day irritated because she realized that these guards were not very educated. She thought that after all she is a British officer and a British Army nurse. After all she wasn't Japanese. She decided to stand upright and did not bow. She was hit so hard that it knocked a tooth out. After a hard lesson learned she was bowing again. Another torment they had to suffer if the Japanese saw something they didn't agree with, they stood the women in the sun. When women died they buried them. She remembered to have made three cemeteries.

The only thing they were able to endure and survive plus achieve many thing, it was friendship, comradeship and caring for each other. Despite the hostile environment and tropical climate they managed to build from nothing, schools, hospitals, social clubs and religious concerts which were planned and organised.

To show their defiance to their captors they developed a determination not to live a docile and obedient live.

A book was written called "Surviving Tenko" by Penny Starns. Also a TV series was produced but with so many untrue situations shown that Margot was disgusted. They even were so disrespectful and portrait her as a lesbian which was completely untrue. She had many admirers but was not interested in marriage and having children. Margot just liked the life she was leading which would not have been possible if she married.

Margot Turner became a matron-in-chief and director of Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps after the war. She died in 1993 at the age of 83.

GRETA GARBO

GRETA GARBO  1925

Greta Garbo (1905-1990) born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her real name was Greta Lovisa Gustafsson and she was the youngest of three. Her alluring look made her famous and she became a Hollywood legend in the 1920.

When she was 14 years of age her father died and she had to go out to work.

Garbo worked in a few low paid jobs in Stockholm. The saying is that when she was 16, Garbo had to turn down her first offer staring in a feature film. The reason, she wasn't allowed time off from the department where she was selling hats.

Her first film appearance was in 1922 in a film called Peter the Tramp and she played a bathing beauty.

Then she enrolled for two years at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She met a director Mauritz Stiller who taught her how to act in front of the camera. In 1924 Garbo appeared in the film 'The story of Goesta Berlings'.

After that Stiller and Garbo went to Hollywood and were signed up by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. She appeared in 27 films. The most memorable ones are 'The Torrent' in 1926, 'Love' in 1927, 'Anna Christie' in 1930 her first talkie, 'Queen Christina' in 1933, 'Anna Karenina' in 1935 and 'Camille' in 1936.

GRETA GARBO WITH HER MOTHER IN 1939

After Garbo became more and more famous, it put a strain on her and Stiller. Stiller was sacked and went back to Stockholm. He died three years later.

After very bad critics for the film in 'Two-faced Woman' in 1941 Garbo decided to retire and she was only 36 yeas old. From thereon she lived as a reclusive and refused any interviews.

Garbo tried to keep away from fame but was voted 'The Best Silent Actress of the Century' in 1950.

Greta Garbo died at the age of 84 in 15 April 1990 and she was cremated. After a long legal battle her ashes were sent to Stockholm and buried there. She was very wealthy because of wise investments along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and left her $20 million to her nice Gray Reisfield.

GRETA GARBO'S GRAVE

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TRUE STORY -- 'THE MAN THAT NEVER WAS'

EWEN MONTAGU

The true story of 'The man that never was' is all about the intriguing world of espionage. It is a new book written by Ben Macintyre called  'Operation Mincemeat'

The story as such is about a young Major William Martin of the Royal Marines who served in the Second World War. He had great courage and taking on mission in hostile territories and dying in the attempt.

Since he was of a middle rank he could be trusted with the most sensitive information about strategies of the Allies in the war. These entailed letters of the planned invasion in Italy and written by Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye, vice-chief of the Imperial General Staff to General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 18th Army Group in Algeria and Tunisia.

Young Bill, as Major William Martin was known, was in love and engaged to his pretty sweetheart Pam. He carried her love letters right to his end.

However, he was a young officer in London and enjoyed himself in theatres and nightclubs. In his precious days of leave and he was reckless with money and therefore overdrew his account. Lloyds' bank wrote him a letter accordingly. Another letter from his father Mr John C Morris who gave a stern advice to curb his spending. These two letters were also found on him

A story which was of a young man with a promising future and was cut short in his prime. Hollywood made a film called, 'The Man Who Never Was'.

The whole story was entirely made up by two men back at the Admiralty in London. It was a daring operation designed to deceive the enemy over the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Southern Europe.

Churchill decided to invade Europe via Italy after they defeated the Nazis in Africa. Obviously Sicily was perfect but the German were not that stupid and not realizing that was the next point of attack. Therefore they invented 'Operation Mincemeat' and William Martin to convince the enemy that the Allies would invade Sardinia and Greece.

A young flight lieutenant in the RAF Charles Cholmondely and second to MI5 and Lieutenant-Commander Ewen Montagu a brilliant barrister recruited in wartime to the head of Section 17M. This British intelligence section was so secret it was barely known within the service. However, they control the agents, double agents, espionage and counter-espionage.

Cholmondely had the idea to plant this vital information of the Allied invasion on a dead body. It would be found and handed over to the Germans. Montagu had contacts with a coroner called Bentley Purchase. He informed Montague that a 34 year old Welshman had died of rat poison and he would keep him in cold storage until Montague was ready.

Cholmondely and Montague created a life story with a fake identity which spies called it a legend. That dead man become a Marine since they were under the authority of the admiralty and be given the rank of acting major - senior enough to be trusted with such high information and junior enough to pass unnoticed among many dozens of other majors. The name Martin was chosen because it was quite common and the Germans managed to get a Navy list but only from A to L.

Martin became a Roman Catholic, born in Cardiff, a family, social habits (a smoker, theatres and dancer) and financial history. The letters from Lloyds were written by Ernest Whitley Jones, manager of Lloyds, at Montagu's request. An attractive MI5 secretary was his fiancée Pam and her boss Hester Leggett wrote Pam's passionate letters.

Cholmondely worn Major Martin's uniform for three months to make it look worn. They also got a replacement ID card to make him look reckless and an expired Combined Operations HQ pass. The sensitive documents Major Martin carried were named 'Operation Husky and the invasion of Greece from Egypt and Libya and two assault beaches. The documents were placed in a briefcase and chained to Major Martin's wrist.

They invented a further point that Major Martin died in an aircrash and they put the body with everything in a steel canister filled with dry ice. It was loaded onto a submarine at Holy Head, Scotland; HMS Seraph sailed to Spain on April 19.

The submarine arrived in Huelva, Spain and surfaced at 4.30am. They put a lifejacket on Martin and put him into the sea. Huelva was known that the Spaniards were friendly with a German intelligence officer. The body was found five hours later and the British military attaché in Spain was informed three days later.

The Germans seen the documents and believed every word of it. They reinforced Sardinia and Corsica instead Sicily.

The man behind Major Martin was Glyndwr Michael born on 4 January 1909 in Abergoed in South Wales to unmarried and illiterate Parents. His father was a miner and went mad and died when Glyndwr was 15. His mother died in 1940. He was homeless, penniless and was found in an empty warehouse in London's King's Cross on January 26, 1943. Nobody knows whether he swallowed the rat poison because he ate the food which was put down or he committed suicide.

The amazing turn of his destiny was that he was buried in Huelva on May 4, 1943 with full military honour

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.HARPER LEE -- AUTHOR -- "TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD"

The book "To Kill A Mockingbird" written by the author Harper Lee covered a very sensitive subject. Especially at that time where black people were still more looked down than today. The story also is written in a fascinating but unusual style. Gregory Peck acting as the lawyer gave a perfect performance in the film and with that full justice to the book.

Whether Victoria and David Beckham did call their daughter after the Author Harper Lee or not is still debatable but the Author Harper Lee is a brilliant writer. It is regrettable that she never wrote another book after her 'To Kill a Mockingbird'.

Nellie Harper Lee was born on 28 April, 1926. She was the fourth child of her parents Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. Finch was her mother name.

His classic book was published on 11 July 1960 and celebrates this year its 51 anniversary. It sold more the 40 million copies and was translated into 50 languages. The film with Gregory Peck and Brock Peters in 1962 won an Oscar.

Author Harper Lee described so well the powerful racial prejudice in the Depression era Deep South.

AUTHOR HARPER LEE AT THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2007 RECEIVING THE PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL OF FREEDOM. SHE ONLY ATTENTED AFTER A PROMISE NOT HAVING TO MAKE AN ACCEPTANCE SPEECH.

Her success of the book was so unexpected that she never wrote another novel after her masterpiece. As a matter of fact she stopped giving interviews after 1964. Ever since she lives a very reclusive live.

Today, she lives in a retirement home. A small God-fearing Alabama town of Monroeville. It is the same town where she was born and raised. This experience and environment is reflected in her novel's setting, Maycomb.

As a matter of fact the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee reflects a lot of the author herself. Harper Lee Novel is almost an autobiographical book. The tomboy, Scout, watches her father defending a black man accused of raping a white woman, it opens up the Southern society's racial bigotry. The young six-year, Scout, will see how the wrong man is convicted and only because he is black. Author Harper Lee wrote the tragic story but without any sentimental lines. It is a touching and warm novel.

It is understood that Nellie Harper Lee herself was a tomboy and a bookworm. Therefore it assumed that Lee put all those memories into the tomboy Scout who also loves reading.

Her father A. C. Lee was a lawyer and in 1919 he defended two black men who were accused of murder. He couldn't save them and they were both hanged. After that AC Lee never took a criminal case. Now Lee's father was in her book Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck. He was abused for defending a black man.

In her book Lee also brought in the character of Boo Radley. Scout is scared of him because she doesn't know anything about him, being a reclusive. Lee also knew a hermit in her childhood. She also felt herself an outsider.

She felt herself understood by her young neighbour Truman Capote because he too felt alienated from the rest of the children around them. Capote is the author of 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'. Lee modelled Scout's friend Dill on Capote. It was also Capote who suggested to her to write a book and encouraged her.

Lee thought she would be a lawyer like her father and sister Alice. She read law at the University of Alabama. Capote persuaded her otherwise. In the Fifties she moved to New York and worked as an airline reservations clerk for BOAC. She started to write in her spare time. However, when her friend, a Broadway composer Michael Brown, gave her enough money to take a year off and write whatever she pleases that was when she started in earnest.

A year later she had her transcript To Kill A Mockingbird ready. The editor Tay Hohoff made her do several revisions and at one stage she threw her manuscript out of the window into the snow. Her agent made her to retrieve it and it was published. It became a classic there and then. It won the prestigious Pulitzer price.

It shook Lee totally. In her real and last interview Lee said: "She never expected any sort of success. It was like being hit over the head and knocked cold". At that time she vowed to write more. Then she vanished from the limelight.

The Author Harper lee could not be called a complete reclusive because she sees her family and friends. She just stays out of the public eye. Nevertheless, why she never wrote other books is very debatable. She did start another book called 'The Long Goodbye' but never tried to publish it. Her editor Hohoff died suddenly and that could also be a reason.

A documentary was produced and it might give a few answers. It includes interviews with the writer's sister Alice, 99. The Author Harper Lee is very close with her sister. Everybody is waiting for a biography and looks like it will be published soon.

CONCLUSION: The journalist Marja Mills is writing, at the moment, a biography called 'The Mockingbird Next Door'. Hopefully it will be published by 2013. Author Harper Lee's fans hoping to get a glimpse and more information about the media-shy writer.

 Her sister Alice confirmed that it had been written having a complete access and therefore contains Harper Lee facts of her life. It is hoped that we learn more about the person who wrote such a bestseller and why the Author Harper Lee never wrote another book.