Animal Garden) in central Berlin, and as a result often saw Joseph Goebbels walking to work.

He joined the British Army, taking the surname Evans, and was sent to Kerala where he repaired tanks, becoming a Staff Sergeant.

He worked for most of his life at the Safety in Mines Research Establishment (SMRE) in north-west Derbyshire until 1981.

One of the sons is a violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, who married Jessica Duchen, a novelist and classical music journalist and writer, in 1989.

One of his daughters became a GP,another Harriet,a regional officer for the UK’s biggest trade union, Unite.Another son, David Eisner, became a professor of physiology at the University of Manchester and married another physiologist, Susan Wray.