My father, Robert Priddle, who has died aged 84, was a civil servant and energy specialist who ultimately became the executive director of the International Energy Agency, a role he enjoyed and which he fulfilled in Paris, a city that he loved.
Robert was born in Cheam, Surrey, to Albert, a stockbroker, and Alberta. After gaining scholarships first to King’s college school in Wimbledon and then to Cambridge University, where he studied history, in 1960 he entered the civil service. There he specialised in aerospace until 1973, energy until 1985, and trade and industry thereafter.
