Douglas Lees, my father, who has died aged 94, was an architect who contributed modestly to the built environment in various parts of England, from new towns to prisons, loft conversions to granny flats.
He was born in Dalston, east London, with Erb’s palsy, a condition caused by nerve damage during birth, which limited the use of his left arm. His father, James Lees, a fish fryer, had been in the British Expeditionary Force at Mons, Belgium, in 1914, one of a small group of veterans who survived the whole of the first world war. His mother, Isabel (nee Weddell), had six children and worked at home making Christmas crackers. Doug considered himself a cockney, declaring that the sound of Bow bells could be heard across the Hackney Marshes.
