Mothers visting POWs?

[Ian Underwood]

Does anyone have information regarding Mothers being allowed to visit their POW sons during the Great War? My great grandmother went with a group of other mothers onto the continent somewhere to visit her son George Henry Slatter (my great uncle) whilst he was a POW. (I have'nt researched his service details yet).

Whilst a POW, he fell in love with his Swiss nurse, and married her in England in 1920 and had two children. For some the war had a happy ending. Wedding pic attached.

[paul guthrie]

He was in Switzerland? Then was he really a POW or was he interned? Some interned men were actually allowed leave to the UK from Holland on condition they return so others could go on leave.

[Ian Underwood]

He was in Switzerland? Then was he really a POW or was he interned?

Paul, thanks for the response,

That's a good question, The short answer is I'm only at the very start of my research, and in this case I'm guided solely by the family oral history. But there's no doubt the soldier in question's Mother did leave England and visit him somewhere with a group of other Mothers, possibly funded by the local community, as my Grandad in later life wondered where the money would've come from given the family was quite poor with 10 children. He has strong memories of her going and surviving his father's stews!

The soldier's future wife was a Swiss Red Cross nurse, but one woulds assume that they would've been also workiing across the border in POW camps or hospitals.

It's an intersting story and one I hope to get to the bottom off.