My dad, Chris Rogers, who has died aged 79, served as head of the economics department at the University of Dundee for more than 25 years. He was instrumental in the creation in 1987 of the university’s Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, where he was a reader and director of PhD programmes. His specialism was commodity pricing, particularly of iron ore and tin. He published several academic papers and in 1990 co-authored a book.
Chris travelled widely, particularly in China and Africa, carrying out consultancy work for UN agencies and mining companies. He also worked on secondment for the Commonwealth Secretariat in Geneva in 1976, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1977-78 in Geneva and later in Vienna, the European University Institute in Florence in 1987, and taught at the summer school of Tianjin University in the late 1980s.
All this was a far cry from his early life in Atherton, Lancashire. Chris was born in Leigh, the youngest of four children of Florence (nee Crump) and her husband, Fred Rogers, a mining manager. He was educated at Bolton school and then studied economics at the University of Liverpool.
In 1960, at a birthday party for a next-door neighbour, Chris had met Ann Burns. They married in 1964 while he was still a student, and went on to have three sons, my brothers, Tim and Ben, and me.
Chris’s first job was as a supply teacher in Widnes. In 1967 he was appointed an economics lecturer at Aberystwyth, which was then a college of the University of Wales. He moved to Dundee in 1970 as a lecturer within the economics department, and was made its head in the early 1980s.
He was a talented rugby player, turning out for his school, the university, Waterloo (Union) and Liverpool City (League), and remained a fan of the sport. He was very happy last year when his precious Leigh won the Challenge Cup, having been at the 1971 final – the previous time they had won. Parkinson’s prevented a return visit and robbed him of a chance to fully enjoy his retirement, but he did manage to visit Australia several times to see Tim and family.
My dad was an internationalist. He took time to understand and respect the cultures of countries he visited, and taught his children and grandchildren to respect all faiths, creeds and cultures.
He is survived by Ann, Tim, Ben and me; five grandchildren, Cameron, Josephine, Iona, Isabel and Hamish, and his sister Rosemary.
