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Stark Talk: Alistair Urquhart

Alistair Urquhart

26/05/2010

BBC Radio Scotland - Stark Talk, Alistair Urquhart

Alistair Urquhart tells Edi Stark how it feels to be a bestselling writer at 90.

Alistair Urquhart tells Edi Stark how it feels to be a bestselling writer at the age of 90 after decades of silence and discusses his experiences as a Far East prisoner of war.

8/10 
In a moving interview, Alistair Urquhart talks to Edi Stark about how it feels to be a best selling writer at the age of 90yrs old after decades of silence. He tells his harrowing account, a miracle of survival of atrocious experiences at the hands of the Japanese as a POW in the far east.

He was taken north in barbaric conditions to do hard labour, building the Burma Siam railway at the aptly named Hellfire Pass and the Bridge over the River Kwai. Despite disease, torture and beatings, being torpedoed and witnessing the bombing of Nagasaki, he survived and came back to his home in Aberdeen, traumatised and unrecognisable.

There were many times he admits when suicide would have been easy but his will to live was too strong. His book The Forgotten Highlander has topped the best selling charts. He's been named a national hero and he confesses that he is now having the best time of his life.

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