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Heroes from Sunderland – who fought for their country and helped to inspire a legendary film – will be in the spotlight next week.

Once again, a huge audience is expected when the monthly talk by the Sunderland Antiquarian Society is held.

The next one is on Tuesday, November 15, and it will look at the brave members of the 125th Anti Tank Regiment which was based on Wearside, and whose members were taken as prisoners of war in the fall of Singapore in 1942.

The British and Australian armies were outmanoeuvred and trapped in the jungles of Malaya after only six weeks of fighting during the Second World War. They were forced to surrender to the Japanese Imperial Army and it meant more than 100,000 soldiers would face misery for more than three years.

The Wearside-based 125th Anti Tank Regiment which will be the subject of the next talk by the Sunderland Antiquarian Society.

Among them were members of the 125th Anti Tank Regiment who would face terrible suffering on the notorious Burma ‘Death Railway’.

Few of them would survive long enough to return home.

The illustrated talk by Derek Potter is titled ‘Sunderland's 125th Anti-Tank Regiment: From the Fall of Singapore to the Bridge on the River Kwai’.

Derek will give the talk at the Bethany Hall in the Bede Centre in Ryhope Road which is directly across the street from the Antiquarian Society’s own Heritage Centre.

The 125th Regiment on their return home in October 1945.

An Antiquarian Society spokesperson said: “The Regiment was formed in early 1939 and was made up of Territorial Army lads from Sunderland. They would have daytime jobs but on evenings trained on the Garrison Field.

"They were sent to Singapore in late 1941 but in February 1942 were captured by the Japanese. The men were sent to POW camps and eventually put to work building the infamous Burma-Siam railway.”

“The talk starts at 7.30pm and carriages are at 9pm. Doors open 6.40pm and all are welcome. There is disabled access.”

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Some of the soldiers who served in the 125th Anti Tank Regiment.

The Antiquarian Society also welcomes people to its Heritage Centre in Douro Terrace on Wednesday and Saturdays, from 9.30am to 12pm.

The Antiquarian Society, which was founded in 1900, holds extensive archives which were amassed and donated by the people of Sunderland.

Visit the Sunderland Antiquarian Society’s Facebook page or its website at http://www.sunderland-antiquarians.org to find out more.

The brave Sunderland soldiers from the 125th Anti Tank Regiment who spent three years battling for life as prisoners of war