South Yorkshire Times, May 6th, 1944
Denaby Officer Home from The East
Major Jim Collingham, second son of Mrs. Jones of 41, Cliff View, Denaby and the late Mr. J. Collingham, who went out to China six and a half years ago as a Staff Sergeant, was commissioned and promoted to his present rank abroad, has returned to this country. His family accompanied him to China and have returned home with him.
A surface worker at Cadeby Main Colliery, Major Collingham joined the Scots Guards 16 ½ years ago rising to be a Sergeant. His wife and elder son, Alan, who is 8, went to China with him, and their second son, Malcolm, was born there six months after they reached the country. Mrs. Collingham is a Conisbrough girl, the daughter of Mrs. and the late Mr. A. Lunt, of Dunn Street. She and the two boys were evacuated from Tientsin via Hong Kong in January, 1940, to Egypt and later Palestine and South Africa, where they were joined by Major Collingham, to make the journey home.
Major Collingham left China for the Middle East in June, 1940, and as a Captain was an Assistant Commandant in the Forces there. He has seen service in the Sudan in the Eritrean campaign, Egypt, Palestine, and other parts of the Middle East.
While in the Middle East, Major Collingham visited his brother Pte. Thomas Collingham, who joined the R.A.O.C. two years ago, and has been with Paiforce for 17 months. Pte. Collingham is an old boy of Mexborough Secondary School, and worked as a clerk at Mexborough Electricity Department.
Always when abroad Major Collingham had the “South Yorkshire Times” sent to him and he told our representative how much magazines and periodicals of all kinds are welcomed in the troops abroad, however old they might be. The local newspapers, he said, provide points of interest often missed by relatives in their letters.