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Thursday 23 June 2011

German POW Abergwili




Yesterday we delivered a picture to a lady outside Carmarthen. She invited us in and then showed me a painting. She had seen my watercolour of Abergwili and told me the following story.
She had grown up during the Second World War and had gone to school in Abergwili.
During the War there was a Prisoner of War Camp in Abergwili. I had seen photographs of this previously where West Wales Hospital now stands.

In 1947 there were still prisoners of War there but they were allowed a reasonable amount of freedom. One of the prisoners used to paint. She would often see him sitting on the wall, which at the time extended from the Gwili Bridge down towards the village running by the road.
When he left to return to Germany he gave her a painting of Abergwili, which was the same view I painted in the watercolour above. The differences being that the wall is shown and a farm that stood by Ebeneezer Chapel was included that is no longer there. The painting itself was an oil in an impressionist style similar to Edward Morland Lewis. It was a lovely painting that had been very well executed. Her husband had wanted to return it to the family of the POW but had failed to locate them.

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