Win! A copy of Survivor on the River Kwai

 WIN! A COPY OF SURVIVOR ON THE RIVER KWAI
As we approach 100 years since the beginning of the ‘war to end all wars’, Britain will stand still today for a moment of silence at 11am to mark Armistice Day.
In honour of those who served us in the First and Second World Wars, as well as many other conflicts – including those that still rage today – we set down our ploughshares for a moment to take a look at a book written by one of the last men still standing from a devastating war.
Author of Survivor on the River Kwai, the incredible story of life on the Burma Railway, Reg Twigg was called up in 1940. He expected to be fighting Germans, instead he found himself caught up in the worst military defeat in modern British history – the fall of Singapore to the Japanese.
What followed were three years of hell, moving from one camp to another along the Kwai River, building the infamous Burma railway for the all-conquering Japanese Imperial Army.
Some prisoners coped with the endless brutality of the code of Bushido by turning to God; others clung to whatever was left of the regimental structure.
Reg made the deadly jungle, with its malaria, cholera, swollen rivers, lethal snakes and exhausting heat, work for him. With an ingenuity that is astonishing, he trapped and ate lizards, harvested pumpkins from the canteen rubbish heap and, with his homemade razor, became camp barber.
That Reg survived is testimony to his courage and determination, exemplified by his will to beat the brutality of camp guards who had nothing but contempt for him and his fellow POWs. He was a risk taker whose survival strategies sometimes bordered on genius.
Reg’s story is unique. Together with photographs taken during that harrowing time, Survivor on the River Kwai is a notable war story.
Survivor on the River Kwai
By Reg Twigg
Published by Penguin Group (NZ)
RRP $37.00
Garden-NZ has a copy of this book to give away to one lucky reader.
Simply click here to enter.
One entry per person; entries close December 11, 2013.
Winner notified by phone or email.