AN 88-year-old inventor is still tinkering away – decades after creating unique television and milling equipment.

Engineer Geoffrey Bampfield has spent much of his life coming up with new electrical and engineering inventions.

The Crosland Moor pensioner believes he was the first person in Huddersfield to own a colour television set.

Now aged 88, the inventor’s mind is still active.

Mr Bampfield said: “I think I have always been inventing.

“I have always liked electrical things but in the early days it was magnets, batteries and wires.

“Then radio came along and I got interested in that and then television and I became fascinated with that too.

“When I became chief engineer at Pennine Radio I designed a special unit converting BBC television receivers so that they could receive ITV transmissions.

“I was then involved in inventing the warp stop motion for textile mills which would keep the sun off the loom as it stopped it working.

“It was a big help to the mills because it meant the looms were working longer.”

Mr Bampfield’s interest in technology began as a child when he was a pupil at Mirfield Grammar School.

He joined the RAF in 1939 and served as a wireless operator in Sussex before being posted to the Far East.

He added: “I was stationed in Sussex which was one of the biggest transmitting stations.

“The Germans hadn’t a chance because we could tell when they were taking off in France.”

The pensioner was then posted to serve under Lord Mountbatten in the Far East before returning at the end of the war.

It was then he began his career with Pennine Radio before later opening his own shop in Crosland Moor.

He displayed what he believes was the town’s first colour television set in his Park Road shop window in 1971.

“People would walk past and see it was in colour and they would stop and watch it,” he added. “They were amazed by it.”

During his illustrious career, Mr Bampfield was involved in the invention of a television converter unit to increase transmitting signals.

He also invented a unit that would allow television sets to receive BBC and ITV.

But it was the creation of the weft-warp stop motion for textile looms which was his proudest achievement.

Now at the age of 88, Mr Bampfield spends his days learning more about technology, while studying advanced maths and engineering.

“I’m still learning, I can’t leave it alone.

“It keeps my brain active which I like.

“But everything nowadays is computer based and I don’t believe in computers. I know a lot about them but I don’t agree with them.

“I stick to the wireless.”