DAVID Keiller, who has died aged 82, was known in Dorset as a hotel manager, businessman and magistrate.

He was born David Edward Spencer Killer, the son of a Nottingham vicar whose family often holidayed in Bournemouth.

The family later moved to Jersey, where they lived through the Nazi occupation, and David vividly recalled being dragged at gunpoint from his bed, as well as putting sand in the Germans’ petrol tanks and stealing from their stores.

Enlisting in the Army in 1948, he served as a Corporal in the Berlin Airlift. After completing his pilot’s training, he successfully applied to join the Parachute Regiment, serving for two years in Malaya and being mentioned in dispatches.

He later joined the RAF, where his flying career ended when his hearing was damaged in an air firing exercise.

He took over the family farm at Lochloy in Inverness until the 1970s, when hard economic times prompted a moved to Poole to manage the Orton Rigg Hotel in Canford Cliffs for the British Rheumatism and Arthritis Association.

His father, the Rev Francis William Killer, had been vicar of St Ambrose Church in Westbourne in the 1950s and died in Robert Louis Stevenson Avenue in 1955.

David changed the family name to Keiller the same year.

David and his family moved to Canford Heath and he was employed introducing foreign students to UK universities.

An attack of the nerve inflammation polyneuritis left him paralysed for two years, but he recovered with the help of family support, physiotherapy, steroids and the discipline he had learned in the services.

He subsequently worked at Aish Naval Electronics for 10 years before being made redundant.

His final job was with the appliances department at Poole Hospital. He also became a Justice of the Peace at Poole.

The family moved to Broadstone in the 1980s, where he took to hillwalking with friend Dennis East, as well as enjoying winemaking, photography and gardening.

David married Rosemary in 1958, while he was at Coastal Command in Ballkyelly.

They had daughter Jeni in 1959 and twins Iain and Alison in 1966.

In the 1990s, David and Rosemary moved to Ludlow in Shropshire, where he took up carpentry and enjoyed visits from his grandchildren Isobel, Josh, Tom and Polly.

He died at Severn Hospice, Shrewsbury, on Thursday, January 2. His funeral was held in Ludlow yesterday.