VILLAGERS gathered in Filby, near Yarmouth, yesterday afternoon for a special service to dedicate a memorial to Far East prisoners of war.The memorial, on Filby Village Pound, has been fashioned out of cast concrete by villager Tom Green, who used the same tile mosaic technique he employed in building village signs last year.

VILLAGERS gathered in Filby, near Yarmouth, yesterday afternoon for a special service to dedicate a memorial to Far East prisoners of war.

The memorial, on Filby Village Pound, has been fashioned out of cast concrete by villager Tom Green, who used the same tile mosaic technique he employed in building village signs last year.

Former Far East POW Eddie Hunn, from Yarmouth, had overseen the placement of the memorial, an initiative of Filby in Bloom, at the beginning of last month.

Filby in Bloom spokesman Adrian Thompson said it recognised the Far East mission of the 18th East Anglian Infantry Division, which had included men from the village in the 4th, 5th and 6th battalions of the Royal Norfolk Regiment.

Following fierce fighting in Singapore in January 1942, surviving members of the division were interred as POWs and some sent to build the infamous Burma Siam railway.