Charles ‘Peter’ Garfield Woodruff 1920-2019
At the Harlequin’s Players’ Association Lunch at the RAC last Friday, there was one notable absentee, Peter Woodruff. The following day the news broke that he had collapsed and died at Leicester station on his way to the Lunch. Having just celebrated his 99th birthday, he was England’s oldest international. Having been born in Newport, he might have played for Wales. Indeed, he had been picked for a Welsh trial before playing in an English one. However, he withdrew through injury from the Welsh one and went on to gain four caps on the wing for England in the 1950-51 season at the age of 29.
This was one of the many contradictions in his life. Even his name was a source of confusion. To his playing compatriots, he was always known as Charlie. However to his family, he was Peter. The story behind this is that his mother had wanted to call him Peter but the matriarch of the family, his grandmother, had dictated that he should be called Charles. So he was christened Charles.
Peter was born on October 30th 1920 to Cew and Doris Woodruff. He was one of their five sons and a daughter. He grew up in Newport and like many a player of that generation, his rugby career was interrupted by the Second World War. During this, he served in the RAF flying Dakotas for Transport command. One of his missions was to drop paratroopers over France as part of D-Day. During the war, he married Eileen and they had three daughters and a son.
Demobbed as a Flight Lieutenant, Peter joined the Civil Service. Initially, he played for Cheltenham. When work took him to Kent, he joined Harlequins at the insistence of Peter Brook, the former Harlequin and England forward, a master at Clifton College who had recommended the likes of Phil Davies, Roger Whyte and John Currie to join the Club. His first appearance was against Cardiff in February 1950. Over the next 14 seasons, he appeared definitely 190 times, scoring 62 tries. Interestingly, he was presented a tankard celebrating his 200th appearance for the Club at the match against London Irish in February 1958. So he may have played many more times. By then, he was living in Stroud and often turned out for Cheltenham if he could not make the Quin’s games, especially the away matches. In addition to Cheltenham, Quins and England, Peter also made appearances for the Civil Service, Kent, Gloucestershire, Western Counties, London Counties and the Barbarians. Having made his last match with Quins at the age of 42, he eventually hung up his boots at the age of 56 playing for Stroud 4th XV under the captaincy of his son, Peter. He said that he could keep on playing but could not be bossed around by his son!
In rugby there are those that are characters and those that are legends. There are few that are both. Peter was one of those. Ten years ago, he enthralled the HPA Lunch with tales of the shenanigans he got up to. One that stays in the memory was of his Austin A7 that was like the milkman’s horse; knew its way home. After a game, Peter was poured into the car at Twickenham and the next thing he remembered was waking up the following morning in the car outside his home in Stroud. Even a month ago at Micky Steele-Bodger’s wake, he was running his daughter and grand-daughter ragged as he kept disappearing all round the East India Club. Peter was of the generation that played hard both on and off the field. He died wearing his club tie and will be sorely missed.
Our thoughts are with his children, grandchildren and the rest of his family.
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