My friend Herbert Munk, who has died aged 94, was an electrical engineer who spent 40 years at GEC in Coventry, where his achievements in telecoms included working on the team that developed the UK’s first branch telephone exchange controlled by computer.
Herbert was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother, Elly (nee Loewenbein), and a Czech father, Hans. Soon after his birth the family escaped to Zagreb in Yugoslavia, then to British-ruled Kenya, where his father ultimately became a coffee farmer.
He went to a boarding school in Kenya, where he quickly learned English to add to the German he had grown up with, and after finishing his schooling he moved in 1949 to the UK, where he gained a diploma in electrical engineering from the Institution of Electrical Engineers. After that he went to work in 1956 for GEC in Coventry, staying there for 40 years until his retirement in 1996. At GEC he worked in a world-leading electronics and telecommunications team that not only developed the UK’s first digital branch exchange controlled by computer but also won three patents, including one for speech signal transmission.
In his spare time Herbert had a wide range of interests, including playing bridge, going to the theatre, reading and learning languages. Determined to keep intellectually engaged and cognitively alert as he aged, he did the Guardian puzzles, read widely and when less mobile used Zoom to play bridge, attend synagogue services and take Yiddish classes. He was a member of the Birmingham Progressive Synagogue and latterly the Coventry Jewish Reform Community.
Herbert was an excellent baker of continental cakes and a committed supporter of the European Union, attending a London march against Brexit in 2019 despite having limited mobility. He was an excellent storyteller, a pragmatist who met the challenges of his long life with tenacious adaptability, engaging compassionately with the world, his colleagues, friends and family.
He married June Stokes, a teacher, whom he met in Coventry, in 1961. June died in 2002; he is survived by their daughters, Leila and Kate, eight grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.
