Auld Author – The Bamboo Doctor by Stanley S. Pavillard by Diane

We often talk about getting lost in a book. It’s a beautiful idea. That someone’s prose is so convincing, so overwhelming that you lose touch with reality. One of my favourite authors of all time, the late great Sir Terry Pratchett, could make you believe. I was in awe of the Great A’Tuin, amused by the Unseen University and disgusted by the sluggish flow of the river Ankh through the capital city. But, much as I loved those books and the sites and sounds of the Discworld – how beautiful is the Rimfall?-I couldn’t honestly say I was lost in them.

Many books are enthralling with locations real or imaginary that it’s possible for the reader to imagine the places and characters. But actually – lost in the book- to the extent that you actually believe you are living in the time is very rare, I think. There has been one for me and I read it before I was married. We celebrate our fifty-fifth wedding anniversary this year. So, there we are over fifty-five years ago I read The Bamboo Doctor. It was my dad who recommended it to me. He was a great reader and had a huge hand in my love of books and as a knock on my love of writing. But this was an odd book to give to a teenage girl in the Liverpool of the Beatles and all that stuff. It’s about the terrible, inhuman conditions that were endured by the prisoners of war who were forced to build the Railway of Death in World War two. The railway ran between Thailand and Burma. It was built in the Kwai River valley. So of course it is famous and infamous. This book relates the story of a doctor who had the responsibility of treating the prisoners.

I had a close friend whose father had been one of those prisoners. I didn’t find that out until later, but I know that, though it took decades to do it, the experience did eventually contribute to his death.

The thing I remember as if it were yesterday was sitting on the bus going to work (the number 28 if you’re asking) and being appalled that people were laughing. Actually appalled and furious. How could they laugh when these terrible things were happening? But this was in the sixties. George Paul John and Ringo had burst onto the scene. But on that journey to work I was totally lost, completely convinced that the railway was being built, that men were dying and this hero doctor was fighting to save them with scraps of this and that and infusions of coconut milk in the absence of blood or anything else.

Writing this now, I feel quite emotional. The book is out of print, but I think there are references to it and it can probably be found here and there. It’s harrowing and brutal and dark and completely convincing and absorbing. Would that I could write half as well.

Diane