TICKETS are being snapped up for a chance to see unique photographs by Railway Man Eric Lomax which were discovered buried under papers in an old ammunition box.
Organisers of the Eric Lomax Memorial Lecture next Saturday at the National Museum of Scotland are having to stage the event in a large auditorium after it became clear that the original, smaller seminar room was not big enough to hold all those wanting to attend.
Eric Lomax: Railway Man of War and Peace will explore the former PoW’s huge interest in railways and show the photographs he took just before and after he was taken prisoner and tortured by the Japanese during the Second World War. Members of his family will also attend the lecture.
The demand for tickets has astonished the event’s speaker, Dr Michael Bailey, president of the Stephenson Locomotive Society, despite the publicity surrounding the star-studded film of Lomax’s best-selling book The Railway Man.
“The interest is extraordinary – far more than I imagined although of course the film has helped his story become more widely known,” said Bailey who pointed out that Lomax was originally an Edinburgh man before becoming a lecturer at Strathclyde University and then later settling down in Berwick upon Tweed.
His horrendous experiences on the Death Railway built between Thailand and Burma during the Second World War, which claimed the lives of thousands of Allied prisoners, are the subject of both his book and the film which stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, but Bailey will be concentrating on the pictures he took just before and after his captivity.
These were discovered after Lomax’s death in 2012 when Bailey, who is an old friend of Lomax, was helping his wife, Patti, sort through his old books and papers.
“Buried underneath several piles of papers we found an old Second World War ammunition box which contained over 1,000 negatives,” revealed Bailey.
These were found to be unique pictures of locomotives taken by Lomax who cycled all over the UK before war broke out to make his catalogue. The find, which has been donated by Mrs Lomax to the Stephenson Society, the oldest railway society in the world, includes photographs he managed to take in India earlier in the war as well as meticulous notes of every picture taken.
The record starts in 1936 when Lomax began visiting industrial sites in central Scotland to take “very high quality” photographs of the locomotives.
“These are of industries no longer extant so in a sense it is an industrial history of the lowlands of Scotland as well,” said Bailey. “By 1939 he was not only exploring Scotland but the north of England too and then cycled over 1000 miles to the south coast and back during his summer holidays.”
Bailey believes the stamina Lomax built up during his epic runs helped him survive his terrible ordeal.
“He was an endurance swimmer and he seems to have applied his endurance ability to cycling,” said Bailey. “The physical strength he had must have been a very important part of how he managed to withstand the treatment he suffered from the Japanese – he had enormous stamina.”
Lomax certainly treasured his bike and could never bear to part with it. “Patti still has it, as she did not have the heart to dispose of it either,” added Bailey.
In 1939, Lomax volunteered for the Royal Corps of Signals, eventually being commissioned as a second lieutenant. When he was posted first to India in 1941 he took his camera with him and managed to take a number of pictures of exported British locomotives.
“Then comes the gap from 1942-45 when he went through all these dreadful experiences,” said Bailey.
When the war ended Lomax returned to India to pick up his kit – including the camera and still-undeveloped film.
“When he got back to the UK his domestic circumstances changed quite dramatically,” said Bailey.
“His mother had died and he got married but the photographs he took still had the same meticulous detail – it was as if there was some kind of security in the continuity of it. Everything else changed around him but he carried on with his railway interest.”
The photograph collection stops suddenly in 1949 when Lomax was posted to the Gold Coast in West Africa with the colonial office.
However, he remained a member of the Stephenson Locomotive Society and was one of the longest serving members of all time with a 75-year record when he died at the age of 93. He was also a member of the Newcomen Society for 60 years which is where Bailey first met him 40 years ago.
“We hit it off as we have a similar sense of humour,” said Bailey. “We always managed to have a tremendous laugh despite everything he had been through.”
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