Picture of the Anzac spirit

KENT BLECHYNDEN/ The Dominion Post

SPENCER HILL: His memories of the Stalag prison are "of boredom, always thinking when were you going to get out, when was the war going to finish?''.

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When Spencer Hill sat for a portrait in a German prisoner-of-war camp in 1944, he had no idea the painting would make it back to New Zealand before him.

Painted by a fellow POW using sardine oil from rations, the artwork still hangs in the 94-year-old's Paraparaumu home.

Mr Hill, who eventually escaped from the camp, is a quintessential Anzac still ringing an Aussie accomplice and mate every April 25.

Captured at Kalamata, in Greece, in 1941, he was shunted in cattle trucks across Europe before ending up in Stalag 383 in southern Germany.

He is a little harder of hearing now than when he spent four years of World War II in prison camps, his hair has thinned and his walk is slower.

But Mr Hill has lost nothing of the roaring laugh and open demeanour that won over fellow POWs from throughout the Commonwealth.

Originally from Stratford, he was dubbed the "Taranaki Terror" in camp for his love of practical jokes, which included dumping buckets of snow on fellow inmates as they took a rare hot bath. "The memories are of boredom, always thinking when were you going to get out, when was the war going to finish?"

Although some prisoners pined endlessly, there were good memories too, including the painting, which was done by a fellow prisoner with the surname Nethercote, who had a flair for art.

"He flogged cigarettes to the Germans for paint", which was then mixed with sardine oil and painted on to a canvas bedding material.

Mr Hill gave the likeness to a sick Kiwi prisoner who was sent home before the end of the war and took it to Mr Hill's startled mother in Taranaki.

As the war drew to a close, instead of a forced march deeper into Germany, three friends, including Mr Hill and Australian Mac Keshan, planned an escape by digging a hole under a stack of potatoes. "We kept it amongst ourselves because if the Germans found out, we were gone," Mr Hill said.

It worked, and over the years he has kept in close touch with Mr Keshan, visiting him in New South Wales and telephoning regularly.

Mr Hill worked as a barber in Lambton Quay for 40 years and married his wife, Olive, 57 years ago after meeting her at a Willis St delicatessen.

He still loves rugby and boxing, and will attend an Anzac Day parade in Paraparaumu today.

- © Fairfax NZ News