Thomas Disken obituary

Thomas Disken put his energy and enthusiasm into voluntary work for several organisations
Thomas Disken put his energy and enthusiasm into voluntary work for several organisations, including a stint as chair of school governors

My father, Thomas Disken, who has died aged 79, set up his own solicitor's firm in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, in the 1960s. This venture, together with the family of eight he raised with my mother, Marie, would have been enough to fill a life, but his energy and enthusiasm allowed him to achieve even more.

Born to Mary, a mill worker, and John, a labourer, he and his sister, Gertie, grew up at the heart of Dewsbury's Irish Catholic community. From St Michael's college in Leeds he won a scholarship to study classics and law at Christ's College, Cambridge.

He returned to Yorkshire to pursue a career as a solicitor, first working for Wooler & Co in Leeds before setting up a branch of the company, which later became Disken & Co, in Dewsbury. In 1958, he married Marie, whom he had known since they grew up in the same parish. During their first year of marriage he was required to complete his military service and their first child, Bernard, was born. Seven more children followed, as did various voluntary roles. He coached a local football team and stood for council elections as a candidate for the newly formed SDP.

It was perhaps his role as chair of governors for the local Catholic high school that proved the most time-consuming, but his efforts were well rewarded when St John Fisher was granted its own sixth form in 1979. He also lent his legal expertise to the charity Marriage Care and the British Amateur Rugby League Association.

He always had a keen interest in sport, particularly the local rugby league side, but his greatest outdoor love was walking, preferably in Langdale in the Lake District and, more recently, around Gairloch on the west coast of Scotland.

He found a regular outlet for his musical passions in his membership of the Bradford Festival Choral Society and his leadership of St Joseph's church choir, in Batley Carr, Dewsbury. Holidays were always relished, from camping trips to France in convoy with several other families, to more exotic destinations such as Kuala Lumpur. They were visiting my younger sister, Frances, during her VSO stint in Sri Lanka when the tsunami struck in 2004, and my parents were quickly involved in assisting the relief effort.

He is survived by Marie; his children, Bernard, Michael, Sephora, Paul, Katharine, John, Frances and me; and 17 grandchildren.

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