WARTIME code breaker Harry Beckhough died on Sunday aged 101.

 Mr Beckhough, who lived in Castle Court retirement apartments in River Park, grew up in Bristol attending Fairfield Grammar school and studying at Bristol University.

During his degree, he spent time in France and Germany and became fluent in both languages.

In 1938 he helped found the Wakefield Shirt Company and a year later he enlisted in the Royal Engineers.

After the war, having achieved the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he helped to rebuild universities in Cologne and Bonn.

He returned to the UK in the 1950s and set up a clothing company and in 1958 he founded the preparatory school Cundall Manor in Yorkshire.

He lived with his wife, Joan, in Harrogate for 50 years and retired in 1987 after she died.

In 1996 he moved to Wiltshire to be near his daughter Jennifer who is married to head of the High Court Family Division Sir James Munby.

Two years later he was awarded an MBE for his services to politics.

He wrote his memoirs Thinker Tailor, Soldier Spy in 2007 and has written other books on Germany’s Four Reichs and The Old Testament.