Significant sale totals for two auction lots from the collection of 'The Railway Man' Eric Lomax

Throughout his life, Eric Lomax was an avid collector of railway books and ephemera. The Anderson & Garland Collector’s Auction offered such items from the Lomax estate.

Lot 276 of the auction was described as a collection of 19th Century and later books and ephemera, primarily relating to the Caledonian Railway and Scottish ports and harbours.

It was sold for almost 10 times its estimate of £50, reaching a total price of £455 including fees.

Lot 277 was a collection of 19th Century ephemera relating to Etna Iron and Steel Works, Motherwell. It was sold for £234 including fees, with the original estimate being £60-80.

The other lot from the Lomax estate that was sold (275) was a collection of early-mid 20th Century ephemera relating to the Gold Coast Railway in Ghana, where he was stationed after the Second World War. The sale – £91 including fees – was within the estimate range.

Eric was captured by the Japanese in Singapore in 1942, later turning his experience as a prisoner of war on Thailand’s ‘death railway’ into a memoir, The Railway Man.

It was adapted into a 2013 film of the same title, starring Colin Firth as Eric.

Following the end of the war, he stayed on in the army and joined the Colonial Service in Ghana until 1955, and then went on to work for Strathclyde University until his retirement in 1982.