| Robert Royden Briggs |
BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERT ROYDEN BRIGGS
My father Robert Royden Briggs was born in October 1910 and died in 1982. He was a Commercial Artist and Cartoonist. Drafter into the Army to serve in WW2 and went into the Royal Signals. He was an experienced motor cycle rider and was therefore used for communications.
He was captured around 1941 and placed in the Prisoner of War Camp SULMONA in Italy and spent quite a few years there. His story is told in a cartoon diary form and was published after his death into a book entitled "A Funny Kind of War".
During an escape from this camp he was recaptured by the Germans and was then taken by truck the many miles to Moosburg An Der Isar , Bavaria, Germany to the Stalag VII A camp.
He wrote just a short diary of his time at Moosburg and painted some views and cartoons there. His pencils and art work were of course his prime possession and he told me that he used to bribe the guards with anything and everything he could to get him pencils, paper and paint.
The diaries and paintings etc. were taken out by the Chaplain to Switzerland, and then after the war they were sent to him in England. He always regarded the diaries as his "personal" feelings, and they were written with his cartoonist humour which really kept him going through the difficult times.
Jackie Stringer
London UK
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