Nicola Methven & Sam Dimmer
·4-min read
Vicky McClure was brought to tears after discovering the harrowing experiences her great-grandfather faced in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Taiwan. The 40-year-old Line of Duty actress uncovers not just one, but two family secrets in the latest series of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? which screens this evening (August 15) on BBC One.
She was appalled to learn of the severe mistreatment endured by her mother Carol's grandfather Harry Millership after his capture in Singapore with 130,000 others in 1942. Describing her journey as an "incredible, disturbing, life-changing experience" the actress travelled across the UK and took a 17-hour flight to Asia.
Acknowledging the emotional challenge, she confessed: "There's been a lot of it I've not found easy. For all the action-packed shows that I do and the fact that I might seem hard as nails in certain things I probably couldn't be further from that," reports the Mirror.
Before being conscripted, Harry had been a coal miner in Yorkshire since he was 14. Having spent 18 years underground, he was a married father of five with the perilous role of "timber drawer" in the mines, responsible for moving the supports that secured the tunnels.
Reflecting on her family history, Vicky, who has also explored her naval grandfather Ralph's involvement in D-Day in a previous TV project, expressed immense pride: "I feel really proud of my roots and the fact that Harry and his family were real workers, working hard. It's kind of blowing my mind."
After being drafted and sent to train for the Anti-Tank Regiment, Vicky discovers that Harry went AWOL for five days in 1940 to spend Christmas with his family. This would have been the last Christmas he ever spent with them.
At Larkhill Army base in Wiltshire, she learns that he would have spent 70 days travelling to Singapore by sea in 1942, only to be involved in one of the Allies' greatest defeats of the Second World War, when they were overwhelmed and forced to surrender.
Vicky is moved to tears as she learns that after eight months, Harry was transported to Taiwan on a so-called "hell ship", surrounded by men suffering from starvation and dysentery. Many of the captives died in transit and many more on the long walk from the ship to the slave labour camp.
Hearing of his ordeal, she is deeply affected, saying: "I want my family with me, I feel really on my own in this. It's so much to take in but I feel terrible because he was alone and he didn't make it home. I just weirdly feel connected, which is bonkers because I never met him."
Vicky is shown an account of what the camp would have been like, by Arthur Titherington, who worked in the same copper mine as Harry. Hearing that the men had to shift between nine and 15 tons of ore a day and were beaten with a hammer if they failed, she shudders: "God, it's horrible, It's like a horror movie."
Vicky learns that Harry, her great-grandfather, fell 30ft to his death in a mine while being held as a POW. She finds solace in the fact that he would have died instantly due to a fractured skull. Vicky admits she's "glad" it happened that way.
She also confesses to never having bonded with her grandmother Iris Harry's daughter. Her mother Carol concurs, saying: "She was a funny bugger wasn't she? You were one of those snotty-nosed kids she didn't like!"
Upon discovering that Iris suffered from depression, Vicky reflects: "She was a hard character but she was unhappy and I would be if this had happened to my Dad. I'm really, really proud of Harry and glad to be his great-granddaughter."
Vicky also embarks on a journey to understand why her Nonna Jean, from her father's side, was given up as a baby. She has heard that the people who took her in were cruel and struggles to comprehend why her family allowed it.
She discovers that Jean was a fourth child that her parents, Thomas and Ruby Compton, couldn't afford. She also uncovers that Thomas, from Grimsby, wasn't actually Jean's father, as Ruby gave birth more than nine months after Thomas had gone away to sea.
Vicky is told that the couple who adopted Jean mistreated her, made her sleep in the cellar, and tried to force her into sex work.
She expresses her sorrow, saying: "It breaks my heart knowing that she wasn't given away to good people. I never knew anyone as happy as her but she had such a bad start. In my head it's her trying to break that chain."
