My grandfather was taken prisoner by the Japanese at the Fall of Singapore in February 1942. For nearly four years he was separated from those he held dearest, living a daily existence of hunger and hardship, determined to “see it through”. When Liberation came he was nearly blind and deaf, and weighed about 60 kilos.

Throughout his long years of captivity J.B. Dunne kept a secret diary. Written in letter form to my grandmother, he chronicled his life behind barbed wire while he dreamed of open spaces and longed for the day when he would be reunited with his beloved wife and children.

He returned to a world that had changed beyond recognition. The people and places whose images he had held firmly before him during those lonely “hidden years” had been altered or destroyed by the brutal hand of War.

Undeterred by the challenges that awaited him, he unwaveringly kept his sights fixed on the plans that had kept him going through endless days of toil and countless nights filled with dreams of a better life than the one he had lived before.