A FORMER prisoner-of-war who escaped the Nazi’s clutches by hiking across mountains and went on to fight for workers’ rights in the jewellery trade has died.

Patrick Burns Farquhar, of Whitbourne, died in hospital on Saturday, October 4, while on a family trip to Devon, aged 92. A service was held at Worcester Crematorium on Thursday, October 16.

As a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps he was posted to the Middle East but captured following the siege of Tobruk.

A captive, he was sent to a prison camp in Italy but escaped to neutral Switzerland.

Following the war he joined the British Jewellers’ Association (BJA) where he helped the trade unions’ campaign to improve conditions for workers in the industry. He was awarded an MBE for his efforts in 1979.

A keen sportsman, he played cricket and rugby for Birmingham City Officials and rugby for North Midlands County, winning several caps.

He was also a freemason and a member of the Corinthian Lodge, in Birmingham, and Provincial Grand Lodge, in Warwickshire.

Mr Farquhar was born in Birmingham and educated at the city’s King Edward VI Five Ways before joining the town clerk’s department of the Birmingham Corporation.

He joined the Territorial Army in 1938 and was called up when the Second World War broke out.

Surviving the dramatic Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, he was later captured in North Africa and ended up in a prison camp in Bologna.

When the Allies landed in Italy, Mr Farquhar and his fellow prisoners were moved by railway to Germany.

As the train stopped, he and another soldier managed to escape on foot into the Italian countryside. Dumping their British Army issue boots which would have given them away if spotted, the pair got across the Alps in the winter of 1943.

Rosemary Hutchison, his daughter, said: “He didn’t talk much about his experiences, not at all until later in life but he thought about them.

“He was such a modest man I don’t think he wanted to make too much of it.”

After the war, he worked his way up in the BJA to deputy director general and helped improve industry workers’ benefits through his work with the Federation Benevolent Society.

He was Shrawley Parish Council treasurer and later moved to Whitbourne in 1998.

Mr Farquhar is survived by his wife of 68 years, Jean, a sister, two daughters Mrs Hutchison and Angela Lane, three grandchildren and four great grandchildren.