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Photographed in my native homeland of Wales in the Church of St Peter and St Illtyd in the village of Llanhamlach, in the Brecon Beacons.

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The 15th August 2015 marks the 70th anniversary of VJ, Victory in Japan. My father, Emrys Withey, served with the RAF as a wireless operator in Alor Star, Malaya, but was captured on the Indonesian island of Java. After being transported to Japan in two separate 'hellships', he was taken to the north of the country to a place called Ohashi, where, he worked as a 'slave labourer' in an iron ore mine. During his time of imprisonment, he experienced extreme brutality first hand, and worked a twelve hour day on a meague diet of many infested rice and soup water, with one rest day a month. In all, he was in three different POW camps, the other two being in Java and Singapore.He puts down his survival to his upbringing in Blaina, where as a child he experienced poverty and hardship on account of the depression which hit the coal mining industry.

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Using dark and white thorn wood, these pieces were made by poor people living in Lagos area of Nigeria. Having no specialised tools as such, they used glass obtained from smashed bottles. The pieces belong to a good friend and are now about 25 years old. Many thanks for his kind permission in allowing me to photograph them.

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