Red Palm in the Morning

The use and effects of red palm oil moved one POW to verse.  Guy Heriot was an internee first at Changi and then at Sime Road.  He wrote about his captivity in Changi Interlude which also included the poems he wrote at the time.  Many of the poems took a gently humorous line on the food and other privations of internee life.  My father would have enjoyed them very much.

 

Red oil in the morning

Is waiting for you;

If you don’t want your portion,

You know what to do.

 

But lap it up nicely,

Though it may appall:

You’d get Brimstone and Treacle

At Dotheboys’ Hall.

 

Mild Laxative action,

So some will not stay;

But what you retain is

Your Vitamin A

 

It cleans up your Scabies,

Pellagra and Sprue:

Red Palm in the morning

Is waiting for you.