Identification card/work permit photo taken in Shanghai of James Michael ('Michael') Orchin in ...

Identification card/work permit photo taken in Shanghai of James Michael ('Michael') Orchin in 1942. His parents, Alfred Cecil 'Copper' Orchin and his wife Agnes ('Peggie'), had moved to China from England in 1920 after her father accepted a job offer from a friend whose father ran a firm in Dairen in China. They settled in Dairen with their son Douglas, who died aged two. A daughter, Pamela, was born in 1921 and James Michael was born in 1927. By then the family had moved to Tsingtao. Pamela was educated at the Catholic Inland Missionary School at Chefoo, where Michael was later sent. He and his family was placed under house arrest in Tsingtao by the Japanese in December 1941, and allowed to repatriate to England from Shanghai in August 1942, when Pamela rejoined them, but they missed their boat. As a result they became internees, housed at the Columbia Country Club until April 1943, and at the Lunghwa Civil Assembly Area (an internment camp) until the end of the war.

Initially the family was placed in separate accommodation blocks, but later the elder Orchins were allowed to live in the same black (6 to 8 couples to a small room). After the escape of 5 young men, single young men were housed together in Block E away from their families and Michael ended up in Room 202 of Block E. His job in the camp was helping to run the drinking water stations, where he gathered wood, lit the fire under a succession of 50 gallon drums and ladled out the ration of a pint and a half per person per day. This job entailed getting up around 6 am every day. His education continued in the Camp, and he was a member of the Camp football team. His sister Pamela died of malnutrition on 16 December 1944. After the end of the war the family returned to England; Alfred Cecil died on 22 April 1959, having never really recovered from the ordeal; Peggie died in 1995, aged 98, and Michael emigrated with his wife Pauline and children to Australia in 1971. He visited China and the camp in 1997, and was able to view many of the original sites.