Obituary: John Bonner, Teacher and expert in radio, radar, PCs and engineering

Though he never made it to sea with the Merchant Navy, John Bonner's alternative career route took him across oceans from the impoverished north-east of England to some of the world's most exotic spots.

They included Fiji, Saudi Arabia and Papua New Guinea - via Croydon, Leeds, Fleetwood and Edinburgh among others - during a working life that saw him amass expertise in radio communications, radar, engineering, computers and teaching.

Best known in Edinburgh for his role as a senior lecturer at Leith Nautical College, he was affectionately known as Uncle John by his students who immortalised many of his classroom sayings on mementoes engraved with favourite phrases such as "Never in the field of human conflict" and "It's a piece of cake".

Born in the seafaring town of West Hartlepool, he grew up during the Great Depression of the 1930s which badly affected the town where unemployment was rife.

Life was not easy in his own home either. His father had served in France with the Royal Scots Fusiliers during the First World War, sustaining injuries from which he never fully recovered, and the family lost three of their five children through childhood illness.

It may have appeared that there was not much of a future for the young John. However, after a year at Elwick Road Secondary School he passed the entrance exams for the local technical college and was apprenticed to become a marine engineer. While it was traditional to go into local industry, he quickly realised it was not the job for him and left the course.

He turned his sights to wireless marine communication and a career as a radio officer in the Merchant Navy, attending The North Eastern School of Wireless Telegraphy at Otley, Yorkshire.

Disappointingly, a brief childhood incidence of epilepsy prevented him getting a ship and he never got to sea. He then worked locally in West Hartlepool in a business dealing with marine radio equipment.

But another area of technology was attracting him - radar.It was still in the development stages at that time, in the mid 1940s, and being used by the RAF. He promptly signed up with the air force for the minimum ten years and three years later was posted to Hanover, in Germany, maintaining the radar mobile units, controlling the air traffic across Germany in what was known as The Berlin Airlift.

He spent two years there and, on his return to the UK, had various postings, notably in charge of care and maintenance of a radar station at RAF Schoolhill, Portlethen near Aberdeen.

Although he enjoyed the work, he felt there was other exciting technology to be explored - computers. Looking ahead to life beyond the RAF he decided he needed to get professional qualifications and used a correspondence course, compiled by EMI, in electronic and electrical engineering. After several years' study he became a chartered engineer.

His first job was working in the research and development of computers with Powers-Samas. He then went on to work in scientific instruments with Phillips before deciding he would like to teach. After a year's training in Huddersfield he qualified as a technical teacher and took up his first post in 1964 at Riversdale Technical College, Liverpool.

He followed that with his dream job as a civilian education officer with the RAF at No 1 Radio School, Locking, Somerset, only to be made redundant during cutbacks a year later.

After a spell at Fleetwood Nautical College he joined Leith Nautical College, which was then in Commercial Street, as a senior lecturer in 1969 and moved to Gullane. He was lucky enough to be given leave of absence to take up a post in Fiji in 1975. He and his family spent two years there while he taught electronics as a senior lecturer at the island's technical college before returning to the UK.

A few years later, deciding he needed to move on before "it was too late" before retiring, he took on short contracts with International Aeradio and Cable and Wireless, based in Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

His last full-time job was in Papua New Guinea, from 1985-87, when he worked for Posts and Telecomms as senior examinations officer. Employed through Spectrum Management, he wrote manuals and trained locals to take on the work themselves.

Some part-time work followed at a college in the Lake District before he retired in the late 1980s. After 25 years in Gullane, he and his wife, Eunice, moved first to Glen Urquhart and then to Deerness, Orkney, near their son's home.

During his time overseas Bonner took up oil painting and scriptwriting and was always interested in photography. He also made radio-controlled model ships and aeroplanes, the last one being a Cessna aircraft with a five-foot wingspan. A four-foot model of a cargo vessel still has pride of place in his home after 44 years.

He is survived by Eunice, their children Andrew and Joy and grandchildren Judith and Paula.

A service of thanksgiving will be held at Gullane Parish Church at 2pm on Saturday, 2 July .