My father, John Staley, who has died aged 88, was field director for Oxfam in south India and Sri Lanka during the late 1960s and early 70s, when he was responsible for Oxfam’s funding of several hundred local, national and international voluntary agencies.
His role included aid administration, policy formulation, project appraisal, recommendations for funding, disaster relief and liaison with government and non-government organisations. He led Oxfam’s response in India to a drought in Maharashtra in 1973, which fed more than 20,000 people as part of a work-for-food programme, and was made MBE in 1974 for services to the Indian people.
John was born in Epsom, Surrey, the only child of Robert, a doctor, and Sylvia, a housewife. He went to Marlborough college in Wiltshire, and then, after national service, to Cambridge University, where he studied natural sciences and economics (1957-61).
