LIVING HISTORY
Lessons from Survivors
F
ergus Anckorn, also known as ‘the Conjuror on the River Kwai’, is quite possibly the luckiest man alive. At 96 years old, he is still talking about his experiences on the infamous Burma ‘death railway’ and on Tuesday 20 January we were fortunate to welcome Mr Anckorn to the Vaughan. To be frank, calling Mr Anckorn lucky is selling him short. Having been blown up, shot, left to die in a storm drain, survived a hospital massacre of 218 people and only then having been left in a POW camp for weeks without food, his ability to endure is downright miraculous. For an hour and forty minutes Fergus Anckorn told us his
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story, having brought in many relics from his time as a Prisoner of War, including a pair of 75-year-old chopsticks and a photograph of a bombing raid that struck his own camp, burying him in rubble.
“It’s just luck. You died or you didn’t. There was nothing you could do about it.” Not only did Mr Anckorn tell us about this dark period of his life, he also proved that his mind and wit remain
sharp, with a live demonstration of the conjuring tricks that he used to keep himself alive. We remain awed by Mr Anckorn and are very thankful that he took the time to give us at least some understanding of just what he went through. - Jake Bolger, U6FC P14: Clockwise from top left: A young Fergus in uniform, Impressing Sixth Form Historians & Politicians with his magic tricks, A typical Japanese Prisoner of War. Fergus has captioned the photograph: ‘This is how most of us looked in those days in the camps. Note the oedematous feet of beriberi. These bed slats were about 100 ft long and each man had about 18”. The slats were full of ravenous bed bugs’.