In June 1940, Alfred Lomnitz was one of many German-speaking refugees, reclassified as enemy aliens and interned at Huyton, a recently completed housing estate outside Liverpool. Within a year of his release Lomnitz published an illustrated autobiographical account of his internment, 'Never Mind, Mr Lom' (Macmillan, 1941) with a cover design of a figure silhouetted against coils of barbed wire. He described Huyton as a place where "[…] every corner of the camp is a potential picture". Given a room to paint in, Lom describes making a collapsible easel from salvaged wooden posts and door hinges, using a piece of slate as a palette and, at least initially, working with watercolours and cartridge paper brought from home. When the paper ran out, he used newspapers to paint on, describing the satisfying effect of applying watercolour over type and images.