A former army Captain who escaped the Nazis through the floorboards of a cattle truck and went on to become a leading figure in the jewellery industry, has died aged 92.
Birmingham-born Patrick Burns Farquhar joined the British Jewellers’ Association as company secretary in 1948 and retired in 1981 as deputy director general.
His role in helping trade unions to improve the working conditions for all employees earned him an MBE in 1979.
The former pupil of King Edward’s Five Ways was also involved with freemasonry and held office in the Corinthian Lodge, in Birmingham and Provincial Grand Lodge, in Warwickshire.
After his studies his first job was in the Town Clerk’s department of Birmingham Corporation and he went on to play cricket and rugby for Birmingham City Officials and rugby for North Midlands County, winning several caps.
He joined the Territorial Army in 1938 and was called up at the start of the Second World War. Part of the British Expeditionary Force he went on to be evacuated at Dunkirk.
Commissioned in 1940 he became a Captain in the Royal Army Service Corp and was sent to the Middle East, where he was captured at Tobruk. He was held in Bologne in a POW camp until Italy fell into Allied hands, and then made his escape while being transported by train back to Germany.
Daughter Rosemary Hutchison said: “En-route he escaped with a colleague by removing floorboards and lying on the track – they used their billy can knives to enlarge their escape hole and drew lots as to who should go as there was only time for two to escape whilst the train had stopped.
“He walked across the Alps in Northern Italy living rough and working on the land for food when he was befriended by sympathetic Italians. My father spoke no Italian, unlike his colleague, Digby Trout who happened to be a friend from Birmingham, so had to pretend to be mute throughout most of this time.
“Also they only had their army boots, which would have given them away, so one of the locals produced home-made snow shoes.
“He was officially missing for three months and my mother, whom he had married in December 1940, did not see him for nearly five years.”
He moved to Whitbourne, in Worcestershire, in 1998 and leaves behind his wife of 68 years Jean, two daughters Angela and Rosemary, a sister, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
