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Humphrey Fleetwood Luya
HUMPHREY Fleetwood Luya, who has died aged 90 following a short illness, played rugby union for Headingley RUFC between 1948 and 1953 during which period he captained the club for two seasons.
He also went on to play for Lancashire, was capped for England seven times and played for the Barbarians.
He was a tall man of athletic build and while off the pitch he was always known for his patience, understanding, broad mindedness and kindliness, on it he was fearsomely competitive, playing most of his career in the second row or the back row.
Humphrey was born in Liverpool and went to Merchant Taylors School in that city.
He started his rugby union career at Waterloo Rugby Football Club in the 1930s.
He served in the Second World War as an officer in the Royal Horse Artillery, first in North Africa and then in Crete where he was captured by the Germans. He spent the next four years as a prisoner of war in a camp in Germany near the Austrian border.
As the war was rapidly coming to an end the Soviet Army was closing in from the East while the Allies were advancing from the West.
The allied prisoners in the camp were marched out of it and many, including Humphrey, were convinced that their fate was to be shot by the Germans.
He and a fellow officer decided to take their chance and make a run for it from the column. They succeeded in escaping, found a means of transport and headed West, reaching the US lines where they were promptly arrested. Both men had blond hair and the US soldiers who captured them believed they were escaping Nazis. They were about to be shot but they managed to convince their captors that they were both British officers. Humphrey returned to England very soon after the surrender of the Germans.
After the war he met Margaret (nee Duerden) and they married in 1949.
He went on to work in Yorkshire initially for Nixons Foods and then as a director with Dyson Foods. He then started his own food retail business with Margaret and eventually retired to Ilkley.
Humphrey is survived by his wife, Margaret, his daughter, Janet, his son, Stephen and his two grand daughters, Angelina and Tina.
The funeral will be held at Skipton Crematorium, Carleton Road, Skipton BD23 3BT on Wednesday, May 21 at 2.20pm.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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