When Singapore fell to the Japanese Imperial Army on February 15, 1942, it was the start of three-and-a-half hellish years for Cyril Gilbert, then a young company sergeant with the 8th Division's 27th Brigade.

A Prisoner of War, Gilbert was sent off to join the work gangs in Changi prison camp, before being led off as forced labour on the notorious Burma Railway. His story is one of those featured in the new documentary, Under a Bamboo Sky.

“We heard bits,” says Cyril’s son, Ross Gilbert, a long-time resident of Orange.

“It wasn't till later on, when I was an adult,” he continues, “Some things he only mentioned once and never mentioned them again and other things he would talk about ad nauseam. Just the little happy things – and you'd hear them over and over, year after year.”

When Cyril returned home to Brisbane at the end of the Second World War, he set about helping other Ex-POWs and veterans. He was both the National and Queensland State President of the Ex-POW Association, and gave many decades of service to the Returned Services League of Australia.

“Certainly, it's been his whole life,” says Ross. “He was only over there for three-and-a-half years, but it affected his whole life. Basically, everything he did in his life and every thought he had - everything was about those mates who went.”

When Ross was growing up, he says his father was always organising and attending reunions of Ex-POWs in different states, in New Zealand, or elsewhere overseas.

“It was really a big support group for all those people. Most of them couldn't talk about it; they could only talk about it with mates. So the Ex-Pow association was a really big thing… and in the end, Dad became the only man standing in all of Australia, just about, and saw the winding up of the whole thing."

Cyril Gilbert passed away in 2004 at 94 years of age, having outlived many, if not most, of his fellow Ex-POWs.

“He was determined to live to 100,” says Ross. “I think that was because he had to push to stay alive over there, and I think he was pushing to stay alive here to keep the memory of his mates alive, the ones that died… he's always been very emotional about that.”

Throughout his life, Cyril made a number of trips back to Singapore and elsewhere in Asia, always making a point to visit the graves of those who didn’t make it home.

“I always picture them as they were. I see them as 20-21-year-olds, laughing, helping each other out,” Cyril told The Sunday Mail on the 60th anniversary of the fall of Singapore in 2002.

“I can see them like yesterday, so for me there’s no truer words than:

They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

“How could anyone ever forget?” Cyril concluded

Odeon 5 Cinemas in Orange is presenting two special screenings of Under a Bamboo Sky, at 3pm on Saturday, April 18, and 1:30pm on Sunday, April 19.