Philip Patten (father of Lee and Hugo) signed up to the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps in April 1939 when it was clear that war might soon break out in Europe and possibly spread to the Far East. The Japanese invaded Hong Kong in early December 1941 and from the British surrender on Christmas Day 1941 until the Japanese surrender on September 2nd 1945 he was a prisoner of war.

This is the official record - Aberdeen is a town on Hong Kong island; Sham Shui Po is in Kowloon and is the site of Kai Tak airport where Phil was a forced labourer wheel-barrowing sand to extend the runway. In January 1944 he was moved to Japan where once more he was forced to do crude manual work - this time to sort reusable metals from piles of rubbish. Conditions were harsh and the rice-only diet completely inadequate for a European. Although Phil was more than six foot tall he weighed only seven stone (98lb, 44.5 kilos) by the end of the war.