'Moving portrait of hero dad who risked life radioing secrets from Japanese POW camp'

On Remembrance Sunday Michael Nicholson tells the remarkable story of how he came across a portrait of his father John Nicholson drawn when he was a prisoner during the Second World War

Making a stealthy escape under cover of darkness from Singapore in a 12ft dinghy, General John Nicholson traversed perilous seas for five days - using his single paddle to row across the strait of Malacca.

It was 1942 and, finally reaching Sumatra in Western Indonesia, he was captured by the Japanese and taken as a prisoner of war.

Now - nearly four decades after his father’s death in 1988 - a portrait of him as a malnourished POW, weighing half his normal body weight, is being featured in an exhibition at Westonbirt, the National Arboretum in Gloucestershire.

“My father’s story is extraordinary,” his s