ENVIRONMENTAL engineer and motoring enthusiast Max King died at Tyspane Nursing Home in Braunton, Devon, on September 22 at the age of 98.

Born in Devon, Mr King’s great passion was motorcycling – a love which started when he was a boy of eight.

The Second World War put a damper on his ambitions, and it was not until his return from five and a half years’ service in the Royal Air Force that his 30-year stint in motor sport began.

For the last 10 years of his trials career he drove a Hartwell Imp for Team Hartwell of Bournemouth.

In all, he won more than 300 awards, but the prize that meant most to him was the MCC Triple in 1970-71.

To qualify for this, it was necessary to win a gold medal in each of the MCC Classic trials, consecutively, in the same season.

This he achieved on a motorcycle for the Edinburgh trial, and with a car for the Land’s End and the Exeter, a feat believed to be unique.

For more than 20 years he broadcast on motorsport regularly on BBC national and local radio. He wrote for specialist British and American magazines and published several books on motocross between 1955-75.

In his professional life, Mr King served as County Public Health Engineer for Dorset for 24 years, after periods with Barnstaple Rural District Council and Devon County Council.

Already an expert in water systems and sewerage, Mr King – appointed in 1949 – presided over a period of great progress in bringing mains water and drainage to villages and remote locations.

With Water Reorganisation in 1973, Mr King became the first Main Drainage Manager of the Avon and Dorset Division of Wessex Water and, in 1975, was made divisional director – responsible for water supply, main drainage, waste water treatment, fisheries and rivers management.

He had a distinguished career and was President of the Institution of Public Health Engineers in 1973-74.

He was a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers and an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

In 1978, after 42 years in local government and the water industry, Max left Wessex to set up a successful consultancy practice in his native north Devon, before his eventual retirement in 2003 at the age of 87.

He was keenly interested in church affairs, serving as church warden in Devon, and on the Exeter Bishop’s Council.

His much-loved wife Peggy died in 1989. Their son, Robert, died after an illness in 2003.