Jack Hedley :: Character Guides

Jack Hedley as Lieutenant Colonel John Preston, the Officer in charge of the British contingent at Colditz. When he first arrived at Colditz he found the British to be an undisciplined rabble and was initially unpopular with the men because he insisted on some form of discipline being enforced. He knows the Geneva convention backward, and often quotes it to the Kommandant when he is trying to look after his men and improve their living conditions.

Because of the First World War and the Depression, Colonel Preston married at the relatively late age of forty. His wife Caroline is a volunteer driver of ambulances through blitz torn London and they are the parents of two little boys, aged six and four. Lieutenant Colonel Preston also has a frail elderly mother whose health concerns him.