Brian Griffiths

He was born in Woking, Surrey, the younger of two boys whose father was an engineer.

After leaving Woking Grammar School, where his talent for languages came to the fore, he went to Nottingham University to read French.

There he met Jean Lois Smith, whom he married in 1952, and joined the university Air Corps.

When called up, he did his National Service in the RAF, staying on to become a Wing Commander and becoming an MBE for services to education in the RAF. During this time, he served at Nato headquarters in Fontainebleau and later was head of the languages department at the French Air Force academy in Provence. He bought a house nearby and spent his summers converting this old silk worm factory into a family home.

While teaching was at the heart of his career in the RAF, he was an accomplished flier and an excellent shot, shooting at Bisley and ranking in the top 100 marksmen in the Commonwealth.

In 1973, he returned to civilian life after 21 years and was recruited by Bradford University to join its modern languages department. There he contributed to the development of state-of-the-art interpreting laboratories and perfected multi-language simulated conferences, in which experts from the university, including vice-chancellors and heads of other departments, as well as local, national and international guests would discuss their subjects and allow trainee interpreters to render their words accurately in the required languages.

Such was the success of this course that, over the next 30 years, more than 300 Bradford graduates went on to work as professional interpreters, translators and administrators in such organisations as the UN, the EU and the International Criminal Court.

Formally retiring at 67 in 1997, Mr Griffiths continued to contribute to the courses as 
well as completing ground-breaking work for the British Council and European Commission in the Balkans, training Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian interpreters who subsequently worked in the trials of Milosevic and others at the Hague, and trained Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian interpreters in the Baltics.

The regime generally involved the trainee interpreters coming to Bradford for intensive training, and Mr Griffiths then visiting them in their own countries to offer additional training and to set up permanent courses in readiness for their accession to the European Union. One of his students became the personal interpreter for the Lithuanian prime minister.

Colleagues who accompanied him on these visits attest to his popularity, the respect in which he was held as a teacher and the affection he earned as the perfect English gentleman. This was seen not only in his impeccable manners, but his impeccable appearance.

Mr Griffiths is survived by his wife Jean, their children Amanda, Claire and Marcus, and three grandchildren Harry, George and Freddie.