Saved by music in Nazi camp

Starving internees played for rations

STARVING in a Nazi prison, Edward White saved himself and other desperate internees by setting up a band and playing for food.

With only basic skills before his capture by the Germans, Ted emerged from his internment four years later such a talented musician that he went on to write for Vera Lynn and the BBC.

He only quit aged 97 and, celebrating his 100th birthday yesterday, he looked back at the career launched in the direst of times with a band called The Swingternees.

Son David, 67, said: “They were starving in the camp and he wrote to the Red Cross and got them to send instruments.

“They sent trumpets and trombones, then a drum kit and a double bass. But he was a saxophone player and didn’t know how to play the trumpet or the trombone, so he taught himself.

“He then taught his fellow inmates and they were sent out to play for German citizens in nearby towns. They were paid in extra rations for people in the camps. They were starving, that was his way of helping people in the camp.”

Ted from Cornwall, recalled: “The Red Cross sent us paper and writing materials and people were interested in learning to play.”

Ted had gone to Jersey after the outbreak of the Second World War, and had music lessons there from the leader of the island’s Symphony Orchestra. When the Germans invaded the Channel Island in 1940, he was arrested and sent to the Laufen camp in Bavaria. After the camp was liberated Ted enjoyed a career in the BBC. Ted said: “I’ve always enjoyed music, it’s been my life.”

Ted had two children with wife Mary, who died aged 82, and has three grandchildren.