Lieutenant Arthur Robert Royall
Unit : "B" Company, 1st Battalion The Border Regiment, 1st Airlanding Brigade, 1st Airborne Division.
Served : North-West Europe (captured)
Army No. : 268902
POW No. : 00632
Camps : Oflag 79.
Lieutenant Royall was captured during the Battle of Arnhem, September 1944. The following appeared in the Pegasus Journal, the magazine of the British Airborne Forces, in January 1948:
Men of Tomorrow
by ARTHUR ROYALL
Arthur Royall, newly-appointed Warden of the Brunswick Boys' Club, and an ex-airborne officer, tells how the Club was planned by British prisoners-of-war in Oflag 79.
If you have been a prisoner-of-war you will not find it hard to picture a wet morning in winter in a prison camp a few months before the German collapse. Food was short. Red Cross parcels had run out. There was no heating.
At the morning roll-call Percy Flood, a captain in the Royal West Kents, stood looking around him in the rain thinking, "My God, what a slum!" and brought himself up with a jolt. He realised that we in Oflag 79 were then experiencing what many people had to put up with all their lives at home. Thousands of boys were born into conditions like those - but they rarely had the chance of getting away from them.
And that was how it all began. After roll-call Percy talked to several others about his ideas and got them interested. They realised that the war would end sometime and they hoped to return to their homes and a decent life. They determined to ensure that one good thing should come out of all the squalor and miserable waste of time they had put up with. They would set to work there and then to plan the founding of a boys' club in an English city - probably London - for some of the lads whose difficulties they were realising for the first time, as a living memorial to those of their fellow-soldiers who would never return.
So they set to work. Their slogan was: "You must do something for the men of tomorrow now." They organised a publicity campaign in the Oflag. They called a mass meeting of prisoners. It was held in a long, raftered attic with holes gaping in the roof, and, as the wind whistled in, officers and men huddled for warmth in their blankets. The chairman, Lt.-Col. James Dunmill, D.S.O., outlined the scheme and stressed the need for giving boys between fourteen and eighteen not only recreation but also the means of developing physical and moral fitness and a spirit of true comradeship. He asked for several thousands of pounds and offers to help run the club when they returned home.
The audience was mildly interested - but not wholly won over. Then one man jumped up - Private Flamburg, M.M., of the Parachute Regiment. He said he was a Cockney from the East End and he knew something about boys' clubs. "I was born in one of the worst slums in London," he said, "and my Boys' Club meant everything to me." He told the meeting about it and finally said: "If you start this Boys' Club there's no finer thing you will ever have done."
The meeting was won over. And so the Brunswick Boys' Club was born.
Things went ahead with a will. Money came in on a scale which the committee had not dared to hope for. The 2,500 officers and men on the camp gave generously. Amongst them were some 200 Airborne types from the 1st and 6th Airborne Divisions who, having been put into the bag in Normandy and at Arnhem, had found their way to Oflag 79. There is no space to mention them all by name, but among them were Major Byng-Maddock and Captains F. King and S. Panter of the Parachute Regiment, Major R. Buchanan of the K.O.S.B., Captain McCooke of the S. Staffords, Lieut. "Pat" Scott of the Borders and Padres Phillips and Menzies. When the day of liberation arrived the sum of £13,000 had been collected and an income of £500 a year promised from bankers' orders.
A few days after returning to England the trustees went to the National Association of Boys' Clubs and told their story. To the Association it was an inspiration and, with the story as an example, the National Appeal for Boys' Clubs was launched to raise money for providing more and better clubs throughout the country.
For a year the trustees devoted their energies and time to help this National Appeal. Once this was finished they turned their attention to the project of the Brunswick Club itself. It was finally decided to build the Club in Fulham, near the North End Road.
There were - and still are - snags, of course! We hoped to open the Club in the autumn of 1947. This proved impossible. But the main snags have now been overcome and building should have begun by the time you read this. Pre-fabricated buildings are to go up on part of the Club site until the permanent building can be erected.
The prefabricated building will provide for a membership of 150 boys. There will be a gymnasium with shower-baths and changing-room, a canteen, a clubroom, workshop, library, and quiet room. The Club will cater for boys from fourteen to eighteen and provide facilities for Football, Cricket, Boxing, P.T., Dramatics, Discussion Groups, Indoor Games and Camping. One of the main features of Club Life will be the development of self-government by the boys themselves.
No Warden can run a Club single-handed. He must have the help and interest of others. When the Club opens the help of others will be warmly welcomed. We shall need instructors and leaders in all the activities mentioned above; in addition we shall welcome others who are not skilled in any of these activities but who have other interests of their own which would appeal to boys. There will also be room for those who can help in a general way.
The Brunswick Boys' Club will be in Haldane Road, Fulham, S.W.6. The Warden's address (for letters) is 23, Colville Square, Kensington, W.11. 28, 30 and 91 'buses pass close to the Club; Walham Green and West Brompton Underground stations are near it.
The trustees want to build a good club slowly but on the right lines. By the time this issue of Pegasus is printed we hope that we shall have started in a small way in temporary accommodation. If you can help, and if you feel you want to do so, the Warden will be very glad to hear from you - after all, there is something of the spirit of the Airborne Forces behind this job.