Italian POW Camp (WWII) in Lodge Moor

[Texas 10]

There's something a little unreal about this, because, in today's 'Daily Mail' (5.7. 2019)  there's a full page article about the PO W camp at Lodge Moor.  It reminded me of  when I was around 12/13 years old, and a gang of us kids from the Pitsmoor area  would go and fool around on Stanage  Edge for a while and then walk back via Lodge Moor to Sheffield. We invariably passed by the camp and always climbed up the stone wall surrounding the camp to slag off the prisoners because we didn't know any better. One day we climbed up the wall and went into our usual routine and were well into it,'Sieg Heiling' and giving the Nazi salute with one hand and  clinging onto the wall for dear life with the other. ( Sometime, if you could manage it , you  could hold your left forefinger under your nose in the time honored imitation of Hitlers mustache). Anyhow, one day we got a reception committee. There  was a gaggle of people at the main gate. We never noticed this until it was too late.  My first inclination of these people was when all my mates were running up the road and I was still performing.  Waiting for me was a guy in  army battledress and three stripes standing below me in the road.  I dropped down off the wall and he grabbed my ear and we  started down the road to the reception committee, there were ordinary police there too, apart from MP"s.   I was in trouble, so the first thing I did was RUN.. I ripped away and ran for my life, I can still hear the hobnailed boots behind me, and i can  still feel where my  piece of ear was torn  off.  ( Just kidding on the last bit).  

[Heartshome 20]

My cousin and family lived at the top of Fulwood not far from the camp. He remembers as a boy, the Italian  prisoners walking past, being taken to work out in the  local area, I believe some on the farms. At weekends, they were taken for a walk down to Forge Dam. I know they took the German prisoners there as well, as my Mum sat talking to one.