Alistair Urquhart was nineteen in 1939, living with his ‘parents, auntie, sister and two brothers in a newly built granite bungalow on the western fringes of Aberdeen’, and working as an apprentice in a firm of plumbers, merchants and electrical wholesalers. Within weeks of the outbreak of war he was called up, and joined his home regiment, the Gordon Highlanders. After a few months he found himself stationed in Singapore, where he was taken prisoner when the city surrendered to the Japanese. This is the story of his survival.

Literary Review

Mar 2010

Categories

Allan Massie

An Old-fashioned Kind of Spy

Character Building

Much More Useful than Writing Novels

Aesthete with a Cause

In Brigand Country

Law by Name, Lawless by Nature

He Took the Path of Most Resistance

Diary: Proust’s Progress

Pillaged People

Even So, He Had No Right to Beat Up Bibbles

A First-Rate Education

Toxic Relations

A Writer Who Needs to be Saved From His Admirers

Ruddy Old Gore

Border Patrol

25 Million and Counting

Byron Tells All

The Thistle Blooms

Kiss Me, Clodia

This Earth, This Realm, This Poland

Succession Planning

Vichy Business

Grain Store of Empires

Caught By Surprise

The Prince in the Tower