“Jump & Jibe” – Fred Binns Double Bass 1943
“Jump & Jibe” – Fred Binns Double Bass 1943
The painting above depicts David Hodgson’s mother’s first husband, Fred Binns, as a Japanese Prisoner-Of-War (POW) in Changi Prison, Singapore, in April 1943.
It’s quite astonishing that this painting not only survived Fred’s imprisonment and subsequent liberation, but also that it was inherited from Fred by my mother, and then passed down to David from her.
If the painting could speak, it would surely tell a harrowing tale, of how it was perhaps painted using strips of bamboo and human hair, using tints mixed from different soils, then hidden from confiscation by being placed under the corpses of cholera victims. Despite all that horror, it depicts a joyous scene, showing Fred enthusiastically playing the double bass. If the proportions of the bass seem odd, that’s not due to any lack of skill on the part of the artist. That was in fact the appearance of the real instrument, because Fred had built it himself from scrap wood.
Changi Prison seems to have housed an astonishing concentration of creative talent. As shown above, Fred was himself a keen amateur musician, but there were also many artists in the prison.
Sadly, despite having survived all the horrors of imprisonment in Singapore for 4 years, Fred died prematurely of tuberculosis in 1949. He had contracted what was then usually a fatal disease during his internment, but was not aware of it at the time. By the time he died, he had married and his wife caught the disease from him. She was admitted to the ominously-named Killingbeck Sanatorium, and it was only thanks to the development of new “wonder drugs” that she survived at all. Her curative treatment was long and unpleasant, involving the complete collapse of each lung in turn, to rid it of the disease. Nonetheless, she survived the hideous disease that had killed her husband, and was able to resume a healthy life, which eventually included marrying David’s father and giving birth to David!
Ronald Searle, Des Bettany & Fred Binns
Perhaps the most famous of Fred’s bunkmates in Changi was the artist Ronald Searle. David’s mother knew that this painting of Fred was not by Searle, but family were not able to identify the actual artist. There is a signature in the corner, but it was too smudged to be readable.
Recently, while researching for this article, David viewed images of artwork by other Changi prisoners via the internet, and was able to match the style, and the color palette, to a man called Des Bettany. Now that he’s seen Bettany’s signature, it matches that on the painting, so David finally established the identity of the artist who painted Fred.
Des Bettany went on to have a successful career as an art teacher, and eventually migrated to Australia, where he taught tertiary art, eventually rising to become Acting Principal at the South Australian School of Art in Adelaide.
SOURCE: The Bettany family are thankful to David Hodgson who wrote the above text (minor changes made) & gave permission to use the artwork from his blog www.davidohodgson.com