Railway Man and the Burma Star

The Railway Man is a film that I find very moving, telling the real life tale of Eric Lomax, from near Edinburgh. In some ways, the book was even more harrowing, going into greater detail, but the film does justice to Eric Lomax's book.

Eric Lomax was captured and worked on the notorious Burma Railway. I think my attraction to the book and film may in part be because my father received the Burma Star campaign medal from World War Two, although he was never in captivity. It was however a period of his service he never really talked about so far as I can remember, preferring instead to talk of his time in Africa. But he must have been part of the wider campaign for at least 6 months to receive the medal.