My grandfather, Alan Ffoulkes Evans, who has died aged 90, was a public servant, a Methodist preacher and an accidental chemist. After studying mainly arts subjects for O-level, on changing schools he found he could not continue along this path since the new school required German, a language he lacked, for all arts students. Compelled to take science A-levels instead, he went on to graduate with a 2:1 in chemistry from the University of Manchester in 1944. He worked for the Co-operative Wholesale Society and for the confectioner Victory V, before taking up the post of public analyst for Greater Manchester in 1974.
Throughout his life, scientific rigour ran alongside Alan's deep Christian faith. Brought up in the Methodist church, he preached his first sermon on how science confirmed the existence of a supreme being at 21. He became fully accredited as a preacher in 1955, and gave his last sermon in 2003, aged 80.