South Yorkshire Times Saturday, January 16, 1943

His Own Christmas Card

Wombwell Art Students’s Greetings from Middle East

A Wombwell man, Lieut. Colin Clarkson, R.A., son of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Clarkson, “Burfield,” Kingsway, has drawn his own Christmas card. In this his experiences since he went abroad nearly twelve months ago are depicted in pictorial detail. For the purposes he has used ordinary airgraph letter.

Lieut. Clarkson won a County Minor Scholarship at King’s Road, Wombwell, and afterwards attended Wath Grammar School, and later Hemsworth Grammar School, his parents having moved into that district. He won another scholarship to the Slade School of Art, London, and two years later went to Oxford where he took his degree. He was on the point of taking up art as a profession when war broke out and he joined the forces.

He served six months in the ranks before going to an O.C.T.U. He has just gained his second “pip.” Lieut. Clarkson was drafted to India but is now in Iraq. He has rigged up a battery wireless set, and in his last letter he says that GIllie Potter and Jack Payne come “booming through at full strength.” They also heard Mr. Churchill’s latest broadcast. He says they are preparing for a severe winter.