Neil Gaiman, a prolific and popular author, admits that he stole a chart from a school library book when he was 10 years old. He didn’t quite understand what the chart was, but it was that chart which persuaded him to read the book it belonged to, The Road to En-dor.

The Road to En-dor is an autobiography of life in a prisoner-of-war-camp at Yozgad, Turkey 1917, and the plan hatched by a Welshman and an Australian to escape. EH Jones and CW Hill intended to hoodwink the camp Commandant by Ouija board ’spooking’ – but this plan wasn’t going well. They were repatriated a fortnight before the armistice with Turkey was signed, by feigning insanity.

It’s a complicated and extraordinary tale and Neil Gaiman ends his article with – “And you can wonder, as I wonder now, as I wondered when I was 10, whether what Hill and Jones went through was worth it – whether their madness actually kept them sane.”

The full article can be read here.

The Road to En-dor will soon be published by Cromen.