Saturday's story: survival despite the odds

Phyllis Mary Erskin Briggs was born in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, to British parents who met while working in the Caucasus. Her childhood was spent in Paris where her father was chaplain of Christ Church in Neuilly-sur-Seine and of the British hospital in Paris. Orphaned in her early teens and brought up by an aunt and uncle in northern England, Briggs took up nursing in Manchester and subsequently at King’s College London. Her passion for travel took her to Malaya.

Her captivity featured in the television series Tenko (the answer required from prisoners at daily roll call), in the book, Women Beyond the Wire by Lavinia Warner and John Sandilands, published in 1982, and in the film Paradise Road.

She returned to nursing in Malaya in June 1946 and in 1947 was married to Robbie Clifton Thom, who became head of the Malayan Police Special Branch and, subsequently, a security officer in British Guyana, before independence. When her husband died in 1967 she settled in Bournemouth where she was a volunteer for Barnardo’s. She is survived by two daughters.

Phyllis Thom, nursing sister and prisoner of the Japanese, 1942-45, was born on June 14, 1908. She died on September 16, 2008, aged 100. RIP.