It reminded me of the scene in the
film “ Whistle down the wind” when the escaped prisoner is found by the
children in a remote barn in lonely countryside. The event that reminded me of
the 1960 film happened 43 years before in February 1917 during the depths of
winter in the remote Moorland village
of Upper Elkstone New Zealand reported that a German Naval Sub
Lieutenant Emil Lehmann was arrested following his escape from Manchester and charged with sacrilege. It was
alleged that he broke into a Methodist chapel and used bibles to make a fire.
The account made it out to be a typical “Hunnish” trick
The chapel in question was a Primitive
Methodist chapel at Upper Elkstones where
Lehmann must have stayed some time before being discovered by a group of
children who saw smoke coming out of the building. The leader of the children
Sarah Ann Bricklebank of Royal Farm ,Upper Elkstones
was a chapel member and had keys to the building. The German officer was 24 and
described in court as having dark hair and was wearing an overcoat with naval
waistcoat and a grey soft cap. He had escaped from an escort at Central Railway
station in Manchester while being transferred
from Knockaloo Internment camp on Isle of Man to Kegworth in the East Midlands . He had somehow had made his way on to the
hills above Leek. The Imperial German Navy officer was courteous to the
children, one of whom had the presence of mind to run to a local policeman. A
chase ensued involving a number of police and locals who pursued Lehmann. He
was caught and in a very British way was taken to Onecote Police Station and
given a mug of tea and toast.
Lehmann was taken to Leek and charged with the
unusual charge of sacrilege for burning bibles in the Primitive Methodist
chapel stove ( understandably as it was February). In court he spoke through an
interpreter he said that he did not know that the building was a chapel and
that he had previously served on a battleship. The report tried to suggest that
he attempted to entice the young girl which Lehmann denied. One gets the
impression with Lehmann that he was someone who did not give in and some months
later he and a number of other German Prisoners of War attempted a mass
breakout from Sutton Bonington Prisoner of War camp in Nottinghamshire. He
seems to have been a repeat offender as he also attempted another escape from Chelmsford prison.
Lehmann’s story is just of the
hidden stories of the First World War in Leek as is the stories of the Belgian
refugees in Bath Street, the raids on the Hippodrome for deserters, the parrot
that helped the war effort, the young sailor who went down on the Hampshire
with Lord Kitchener and the party for returned prisoners in the Red Lion in
February 1919.
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