AN EXTRAORDINARY 83-year-old former Dundee man, who was a Japanese prisoner of war for four years, is to play the bagpipe lament at an Armistice Day service in his adopted home town in Canada.

David Laws is a man better placed than most to undertake the honour.

His life has seen him withstand personal tragedy, make miraculous escapes and, most of all, display incredible acts of courage.

At the age of two, Mr Laws was orphaned when both his parents died in an accident and he left Dundee for an institution in Tranent, East Lothian.

It was during his time in care, and at the age of 14, that he learned to play the bagpipes.

Mr Laws later joined the army and served in Hong Kong with the Royal Scots during the second world war.

When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese and he became a prisoner of war, it became clear he had an incredible ability to survive.

The veteran was to spend time in a PoW camp, where he says he was continuously beaten and lived on a poor diet of just rice, which was often laced with maggots and worms.

Then, in two separate, seemingly fatal incidents, he somehow managed to emerge intact.

In 1942, Mr Laws was sailing with other PoWs for mainland Japan when his ship was torpedoed by an American submarine, but while the vessel was sinking, he cut himself free and swam for land.

Then at the end of the war, when he was being flown home to freedom, the plane in which he was travelling developed engine trouble and crashed, but Mr Laws was able to parachute to safety.

He emigrated to Canada in 1951, settled in Victoria, British Columbia, and pursued his love of the bagpipes.

“I joined the Canadian Scottish Militia as a piper and have been playing ever since,” he said. “I played in the city’s grade one band and my playing seemed to go down quite well.”

His advancing years forced him to quit the band in 1992, but he continues to play solo at organised functions and performs at the Armistice Day service each year in Abbotsford, where he now lives with his wife and family.

The keen musician’s brushes with fate took another turn recently but the survivor in him again rose to the fore as he successfully battled off cancer.

“I overdid it a bit at a concert at the weekend. But as long as I play one tune at a time individually, I manage OK,” added Mr Laws.

Mr Laws left behind two brothers in Dundee, though, sadly, both have since died.

He believes he has at least one nephew still in the city and intends to look him up when he visits Scotland next year for a reunion with fellow Hong Kong veterans.