An amateur radio enthusiast for more than 75 years, dental surgeon David Buddery has died aged 90 at the James Paget University Hospital.

After listening to the first Christmas radio broadcast by King George V in 1932, it inspired a love of amateur radio.

Encouraged by his father, who was a science teacher, he designed and constructed radio sets often using odd and broken parts and joined the local amateur radio club as a teenager.

He was one of the longest-standing members of the Radio Society of Great Britain, with membership spanning three quarters of a century.

Born on August 6, 1922 in Great Yarmouth, he was the eldest of three sons and went to the town's grammar school.

When the family was evacuated to Retford, Nottinghamshire, in 1940, he went on to read dentistry at Sheffield.

During the second world war, he became signals and explosives officer in the 12th Nottinghamshire (Bassetlaw) battalion.

In March 1948 in Yarmouth, he married qualified librarian Joycelyn Brown, whom he had first met when he was seven years old.

He started a dental practice at Scratby in 1949 and then opened a surgery in Southtown Road.

He also assisted James McGowen at Deneside General Hospital and later with Roger Rees at the James Paget's oral surgery department.

A fan of light opera, especially Gilbert and Sullivan, he was a former president of Waveney Light Opera Group and never missed local productions of the Savoy operas. He could recite from memory the poetry of Rudyard Kipling.

A keen gardener, he grew apples including one variety, Walberswick Wonder, which had been cultivated from a pip.

His wife died in 2004. He leaves a son, David, daughter Caroline, two grandchildren Fiona and Charles, and is survived by his younger brothers.

Funeral arrangements are to be announced.Michael Pollitt