I WAS intrigued to read the Rev Magee’s letter in ‘Thought for the Week’ in last week’s edition of your paper.

As a young airman stationed at RAF Changi, and billeted in block 151 (Satu Lima Satu), I also viewed these fantastic murals.

Believe it or not, nobody at Changi ever mentioned the murals at the end of the block.

It wasn’t until one Sunday, after I’d been there for about four months, that I encountered the CofE padre with a group of tourists outside the barrack block.

I asked him what was happening, and he was surprised that I hadn’t heard of the murals.

He then offered to take me with the tourists and explain the history.

Apparently the artist made his paint by mixing boot polish and methylated spirits, and then painted some beautiful religious images on the wall that could equal anything found in many a Christian church. When the Japanese found these they boarded up the wall, and the paintings weren’t seen again until Changi was liberated in 1945.

I don’t know what happened to the artist after that, I only hoped he survived his ordeal because the Japanese didn’t treat prisoners very humanely, even bayonetting patients in their hospital beds.

T TRACEY, Lochore.