A former Japanese prisoner of war from Scotland has died at the age of 97.

Alistair Urquhart left his family home in Aberdeen just as the Second World War broke out.

Conscripted to the Gordon Highlanders at the age of 20, he went on to survive a remarkable series of events as he fought for his country in the Far East.

He was captured by the Imperial Japanese Army in February 1942, before being sent on a 900 mile train journey in squalid conditions to a prison camp in the jungle.

Forced to march 100 miles to the remote camp, he was made to build a railway in sweltering conditions with hundreds of other prisoners, with severe beatings and punishments a part of daily life.

Recounting his experience to STV News in a previous interview, Mr Urquhart said: "They would give us a cup of rice in the morning - about the size of a small tea cup - and one to take with us when we went out to work on the railway.

"But by the time you got to lunchtime the rice had fermented. The conditions were as bad as they could possibly be."

"It couldn't have been any worse. There were continual punishment beatings.

"For anything serious they made you go out in the sun and stand holding a huge rock above your head - if it fell you were beaten."

After surviving the horrors of the labour camp, in 1944 Mr Urquhart was then transported on a Japanese "hell ship" with 900 other men, before it was targeted and sunk by an American submarine.

Mr Urquhart recalled: "That really was another hell hole - I thought they were just going to scuttle it.

"An American submarine attacked and the ship just shuddered. Then suddenly I popped up like a champagne cork in to thick, oily water.

"I could hear men screaming - talking to their wives, calling out for their children, singing hymns. I can't listen to Abide By Me to this day."

Having survived the torpedo attack, Mr Urquhart spent five days floating on a raft before he was picked up by a Japanese whaling vessel, which took him back to the Japanese mainland.

There he was forced to work in an open cast coal mine near Nagasaki, where he was blown off his feet and exposed to the nuclear fallout from the second atom bomb dropped by the Americans in 1945.

After being approached by a literary agent who had heard of his remarkable experiences, Mr Urquhart penned a book - titled The Forgotten Highlander: My incredible story of survival during the war in the Far East - detailing his journey and the horrific conditions he suffered before returning home at the end of the war.

Latterly, the former POW spent his days in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, attending regular ballroom dances with his dance partner Helen Scroggie.

He died surrounded by his family at his care home in Dundee on Friday, aged 97.