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It was my uncle who was captured at Singapore. He'd been brought up from the age of five with this only surviving sister in a orphanage, and by all accounts it had been a very tough childhood. As soon as he was old enough, he joined the army, and was quickly dispatched to the Far East — or as fast as a slow boat to Singapore would take him.

I think he really enjoyed being away from Liverpool, the heat and flies were a pain, but it was great to be somewhere so completely different to England — even if it was on army rations.

When the Japanese invaded he was captured along with thousands of others, but after three days in captivity saw an opportunity, and being a quick thinking scouser - decided he’d make a break for it. Unfortunately he didn’t get very far, and was quickly re-captured.

Like many men who suffered at the hands of the Japanese he never went into any detail about what happened, but by all accounts he was badly beaten, and his fingers broken before being locked up in the infamous Changi Prison, where he was told he’d be shot at dawn.

Faced with the threat of execution at dawn, he spent his last night pacing up and down the length of the cell. He’d said he couldn’t sleep, kept thinking he’d never see his sister ever again, just kept pacing up and down, up and down.

There were several others in the cell at the time, and one, an Australian became highly irritated and told him to bloody sit down:-

“What the hell are you worrying about…you won’t even see the smoke coming from the rifles before it’ll be all over”.

It must have been a hellish night knowing at dawn you were going to be taken out, placed in front of a wall, and shot by firing squad.

In the end, his sentence was never carried out. The word came down, they needed more men on the Burma Railway.

Again he never once told of the terrible things he witnessed on the railway, and despite it all he’s still alive today — well into his seventies. All he would say, was it was the hash upbringing in the orphanage that helped him survive. He said he’d survived many close calls, when many others had died.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone could live through the horror of the war in the Far East. For my part I feel nothing but awe and wonder. Too respectful to ask any questions, and too scared of the answers and the reaction I might get.

I’m pleased he did get to see his sister (my aunty) though.

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