SAVED BY SINGING

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 June 1927, Page 8

SAVED BY SINGING

BRITISH FIREMAN IN RUSSIA The key in which a British ship’s fireman sang in a Russian prison was the key that eventually unlocked his cell door. He- is Mr. P. F. Walton, who recently returned to his home in Cardiff, after an experience which, though terrible, was not without its humorous side. In 1925 he was seized by “Red” military agents at Leningrad on suspicion of being a British spy, and placed in prison. Here he remained for two years 'without being tried, until, on February 3 last, he says, he secured his release by singing “I sang English songs at the top of my voice throughout the night,” Mr. Walton states, “and succeeded in keeping the whole prison awake. The governor lost so much sleep that he let me go. I cannot understand why I was not shot. On one occasion I escaped from my cell and hid on the top of a train going to the frontier. I crouched there for eight hours in a blinding snowstorm and fell off the train senseless at the frontier, where I was re-arrested. Because I refused to make pny statement and to sign any ificr’iminating 'document revolvers were levelled at my head. I was even taken to Moscow to witness executions. However, I refused to speak. “During my stay in prison 20 men committee'd suicide because of the

brutal treatment they received. Others have been kept in chains since the revolution. Our diet was black bread, putrid cabbage soup, and water. Prisoners who complained were shot without compunction. We slept on bare boards without any covering. Armed soldiers paced outside the cells day and night and the governor was never without an armed guoard.”