Colin Bissett was one of my father's POW comrades at Arbeitskommando E72 Beuthen (now Bytom, Poland) attached to the parent camp Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf (now Lambinowice, Poland).

Colin had been a talented violinist before the war. The Camp Commandant allowed Colin to go into town to buy a replacement bow for his violin. In fact he went with him. Later, there was a whip-round of camp money and Colin was able to buy a beautiful antique violin from a music shop somewhere in Silesia.

The guards called him 'Bisset Immer mit seiner Geige'- 'Bisset always with his violin'. He used to play the instrument in the camp barracks and the music was immensly soothing in the fraught atmosphere of a crowded coal mine.

That precious violin somehow made it home to New Zealand, somewhat battered after the Long March, but amazingly still playable. It was apparently donated to his favourite orchestra