A WORLD War Two veteran who survived a notorious Japanese prisoner of war camp has died at the age of 90.

Fred Barnes spent 48 years working in the Lancashire Telegraph newspaper's wire room - interrupted only by his five years serving his country during the war.

He joined the Northern Daily Telegraph, as the paper was then called, in 1934 after leaving Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn.

Fred, of St Mark's Place, Witton, worked as a telegraphist on the wire machines that received news from around the world. He then used his skills while serving as a lance corporal in the Royal Signals during the war.

He was with the Singapore Fortress Signal Unit when he was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and spent the next three years as a prisoner of war. During that time he was made to work on Singapore's docks as a coolie for six months then went to Thailand and worked for 18 months on the infamous Railway of Death, travelling as far as Burma.

Helping to construct the 170-mile railway and bridge that ran along the route of the River Kwai, Fred contracted malaria and suffered from beri-beri, dysentery and severe leg ulcers from being cut by sharp bamboo shoots. Only one in three soldiers survived the experience.

Fred was then sent to Japan and almost died when he was shipwrecked in a typhoon. He was repatriated in 1945 and returned to his role at the newspaper.

Speaking of his time in the war, Fred told the Telegraph in 1971: "Thousands never returned and thousands who did had the marks of their imprisonment written indelibly on their minds and bodies.

"War is hell and prisoners of war are its defenceless victims."

Fred helped make the Telegraph's wire room one of the best equipped in the country and extended teleprinter links to Accrington, Darwen, Burnley, Nelson and Rawtenstall.

He married his wife Pamelia and had two daughters Pamela and Lynne and three grandchildren, Russell, emma and Kevin.

He was an active member of St Mark's Parish Church and also the North Blackburn and District Probus Club.

His funeral will take place at St Mark's Church on Friday December 28.