Ex-PoW's dying wish: to be laid to rest at camp

Rudi Lux's ashes are buried under a Peace rose at Harperley PoW camp, near Crook, County Durham, where he arrived as a schoolboy soldier in 1946 and was later to play a key role in its restoration.

The huts where he ate and slept are still standing and will be painstakingly restored as the centrepiece of a new tourist attraction based on its wartime history.

Mr Lux, who moved to Northumberland after his release, became a trustee of the charity, overseeing the renovation of the camp's buildings.

He died in March aged 75, a month before owners James and Lisa McCleod opened part of the site as a garden centre, farm shop and restaurant.

He paid them a poignant final visit after doctors confirmed that he had a short time left to live, choosing the site he wanted for a seat inscribed with his name and the spot in the centre of the circular garden where his ashes would be buried.

His 11-year-old grandson, Kristofer, performed the ceremony on Sunday evening, watched by granddaughter Emma, 12, their parents Craig and Wendy Lux and Mrs and Mrs McLeod.

Mr Lux's book, From Pomerania to Ponteland, is on sale in the camp's shop. Written before he knew of the project, it tells the story of his early life in the North German Baltic region and his conscription into the Army on his 16th birthday.

Captured only three weeks later, he was moved to a succession of prisons before being sent by train to Britain and internment first at Harperley and then Ponteland.

Mrs McLeod said: "He was here just a few weeks but he was able to tell us a lot about life here. He came back to say goodbye soon before he died. It was very moving."

Mrs Lux, from Stakeford, Northumberland, said: "Rudi planned every detail when he knew he was dying. He had planned to be at the camp's opening at Easter but he did not live to see it.

"The garden is full of Peace roses and that is right for him. He loved roses and he lived for peace."