Former Stroud journalist Jack Sollars has died. He was 93.

Jack began his career in journalism as an office boy at a weekly newspaper in Stroud. He became a reporter on the paper before moving to the Western Morning News in Cornwall.

It was while working for the Western Morning News that he was called up for service in the Second World War.

After the war Jack returned to journalism as news editor of the former Stroud Journal. He kept his position when the paper merged with the former Stroud News in 1957 and remained in the post until his retirement in 1976.

During the war he served in the Devonshire Regiment and the Queen's Royal Regiment in North Africa. In 1942 he became a prisoner of war and was sent to a concentration camp. He escaped the Germans while he was a patient at a military hospital and spent five months living rough in the dangerous Italian mountains.

Jack was captured and became a prisoner of war for a second time. He was hospitalised before travelling by train to Sweden where he got onto a ship home to England.

Later in life his wartime stories would fascinate the dozens of reporters he trained.

His former colleague Dennis Mason said: "Many reporters who are now involved in the industry in various parts of the world will readily testify to the debt they owe him."

During his retirement Jack wrote a short book, Wonderings in War-Time Italy.

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