Anthony Jack Simpson

His wide-ranging interests included motor racing, in which he competed until he was 50; he very much regretted selling his McLaren 4a, the favourite of all his cars.

Born in Halifax General, he had to spend the first month of his life with relatives in Halifax because Queensbury, where his parents lived, was cut off by snow.

His father, Jack, was a weaving overlooker in various local mills including Black Dyke. His mother, Hilda, helped out in her father’s shop then worked in Kelly’s pork butchers, famous for its pies and sausages.

Mr Simpson went to Fox Hill Primary School – the highest school in England – and from there to Keighley Grammar.

He wanted to read economics at the London School of Economics and turned up there to apply for the course. Not accepted for it, he tried the Law Department – not an unreasonable thing to do at that time – and was offered a place.

Always interested in transport, as a student he worked in holidays as a bus conductor in Halifax, and in 1961-62 had a temporary job as a steam engine fireman (a schoolboy dream fulfilled) on the line between London and Shoeburyness, when the electrification was delayed. One of the engines he fired, an LMS 2-6-4T, is in the National Railway Museum in York.

At the LSE, he met Doreen Capewell, a Lancastrian, and they were married in April 1961. He graduated in 1962.

Initially he worked in the legal department of London Transport, but then decided to become a solicitor and was articled to the firm of Shasha and Hamwee in Manchester. Exceptional in that he passed all the Law Society Final papers at the first attempt – a rare achievement at the time – he was admitted in June 1966.

He then moved to Bradford and began his career there as an assistant with the practice Sampson Horner.

In 1981 he opened his own practice, Simpson Oddy, and on June 1, 1985, it was amalgamated with the long-established firm of Herbert Duxbury Son & Co, creating Simpson Duxbury.

Mr Simpson was appointed to Employment Tribunals in 1993, first in Manchester and then in Leeds, serving on them with distinction until his retirement in 2005.

A keen motor sport enthusiast and active member of Ilkley and District Motor Club for over 40 years, Mr Simpson rallied with co-driver Mr John Hampshire, before taking up circuit racing and joining the 750 Motor Club.

He took up horse riding with his daughters and combined his love of travel with riding by taking riding holidays with his family. He loved Montana where he could gallop across wide open spaces.

For 16 years he and his wife had a house in Lower Normandy, practising their French with their neighbours. For many years he was President of the Bradford Circle for Foreign Languages, passing on his responsibilities only last year.

Another of his interests was wood turning which he enthusiastically took up after seeing an exhibition at the Bradford Mechanics Library on whose Committee he served until his appointment to the Tribunals meant he could no longer attend the meetings.

The hobby brought him enormous satisfaction, and he regularly went to the Bradford Industrial Museum Christmas Market to sell his pieces, many to returning customers.

A convert to computers, he introduced the use of them into all areas of his life and created web sites for all the organisations to which he belonged.

He was an enthusiastic cook, creating his own recipes rather than slavishly following the book. During one power cut when the miners were striking, he brought the entire Cordon Bleu class from Bolton Royd College home to cook by candlelight on the gas cooker.

Anthony Simpson was a man who enjoyed life to the full, immersing himself wholeheartedly in such a wide range of activities as to make him an enormously stimulating colleague, companion and conversationalist.

He is survived by his wife and their daughters Anna and Fiona.