My father, David Harvey, was a classics lecturer at Exeter University who co-founded and chaired the Exeter Bach Choir.
An accomplished musician, primarily a pianist and organist, David, who has died aged 87, helped set up the choir in 1995 and was one of its core singers for about 20 years. He wrote popular, erudite programme notes for their concert performances.
Born in Bideford, Devon, he was the only child of Priscilla (nee Trethowan) and her husband, Victor, who together ran a bookshop and printing company. David was a boarder at Blundell’s school in Tiverton from 1950 to 1956 and then went Oriel College, Oxford, to study classics.
University contemporaries included the Guardian’s David McKie and the comedian and musician Dudley Moore, whom my father succeeded as the go-to pianist to accompany silent films when they were shown at the university to students.
Although he could potentially have embarked on a musical career, as he had studied the piano for a year between school and university, David settled on academia when he was recruited as a classics lecturer in 1961 by Exeter University. There he met Hazel van Rest, a lecturer in the university’s German department. He proposed to her over a plate of spaghetti bolognese and they married in 1964, remaining in their original marital home in Exeter for nearly 60 years.
Lecturing in Greek and Roman ancient history, David contributed articles to various academic journals and spoke at conferences. He was branch secretary of the Classical Association and took on the responsibility of communicating with the university’s former classics students.
In 1967 he visited Washington DC to carry out Hellenic research, and he later traced Herodotus’s footsteps in Turkey, and led tours up Mount Vesuvius. In addition there were several trips to Oxford for summer research in the 1970s during which he would combine his work in libraries with family leisure time.
By the late 80s, however, chronic depression had begun to render David’s full-time position at Exeter untenable, and so he moved to reduced hours. With no great improvement, he eventually took early retirement in the 90s. He put his energy into the choir and continued to write academic articles. He also arranged guest speakers and kept in contact with the university by taking part in the regular Tuesday campus lunches with classics colleagues until ill health prevented him from doing so.
He was keen on crosswords, a great accumulator of books and CDs, loved cats and appreciated traditional and modern art, as well as vintage sitcoms.
He is survived by Hazel, their children, Myfanwy and me, and a granddaughter, Tabitha.
