A Scots Second World War prisoner immortalised in the hit movie The Railway Man is to be commemorated for his bravery with a plaque at his birthplace.

Eric Lomax, who was born and raised in Edinburgh, was imprisoned in a ­Japanese POW camp in 1942 and endured barbaric treatment as he was forced to build the Burma Railway, a task that killed more than 100,000 people.

A commemorative plaque is to be unveiled tomorrow to honour him in his birthplace of Joppa in Edinburgh.

Mr Lomax, who died in 2012 at the age of 93, suffered mental and physical scars from his imprisonment all his life but reconciled with one of his captors, interpreter Takashi Nagase, whom he chose to forgive, saying "sometimes the hating has to stop".

Colin Firth played him in the 2013 film The Railway Man, based on his autobiography of the same name.

Nick Stroud, a local ­historian who arranged the plaque, said: "We want to celebrate the fact that he is from here and tell a bit more about his private battle as well as his wider story as seen in The Railway Man."