John Deeker - Telegraph In 1961 the Milhollands retired and Deeker was appointed managing director of both Pains and the Wessex pyrotechnics group, which had been bought by Bryant and May, the match manufacturer. For a short while he divided his time between them, but in 1965 the operation was merged into a single business at the Wessex factory in Salisbury. In 1976 Pains-Wessex passed into the hands of Wilkinson Sword, which, with such diverse products as razors and garden tools, soon lost interest in pyrotechnics. Three years later Deeker purchased the fireworks division from Wilkinson for £1 plus fixed assets and stock. Within just two years Deeker had re-established the company to the point that, in July 1981, he was put in charge of the spectacular fireworks display to celebrate the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer - which was watched by a million well-wishers in Hyde Park. Set to Handel's Music for a Royal Wedding, and featuring a model palace and an enormous hand-cranked Catherine wheel, it was one of the largest and most colourful displays in living memory. But there was a glitch moments before proceedings were due to start when a gun carriage of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery severed the main electricity cable supplying the power to the electrically-fired display. Only quick thinking and ingenious improvisation by Deeker's team ensured the show went to plan. John Harold Deeker was born on May 15 1931 in Sutton, Surrey. During the war he attended Port Regis School, which had been evacuated from Ramsgate to the grounds of Bryanston School in Blandford, Dorset, and later Epsom College in Surrey. In August 1949 he followed his father, a senior partner, into the accountancy firm of PD Leake, but three years later joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in order to complete his National Service. The London Division RNR then had its headquarters on-board Discovery on the Thames Embankment; Deeker also trained on-board the carriers Indefatigable and Implacable, and served in the aircraft carrier Ocean during the Suez war. Appointed to HMS Hornet, the wartime headquarters of the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons, he was promoted 1st Lieutenant of MTB 8102 and later commanded MTB 8101, both target-towing boats. He continued in the RNVR until 1963 and remained through his later life a trustee of the Coastal Forces Veterans" Association. In 1957 he joined Deloitte in Baker Street, as an audit clerk, and in 1959 joined Philip and Arthur Milholland at James Pain and Sons as a management trainee. Pain's had opened one of the first legal firework factories in Britain in 1872, firing displays for major events and royal occasions as well as selling retail fireworks. During the First World War, it turned its production to military pyrotechnics, producing Very lights - used for signalling or for illuminating no-man's land at night - and other military and naval pyrotechnics. Under Deeker's direction, the company prospered throughout what became the post-war golden age of British fireworks. Then, anticipating the rise of anti-firework sentiment on safety grounds, Deeker decided to discontinue the sale of shop fireworks, realising that the company's future lay in both packaged and larger public displays, with "set pieces" - dubbed pictures in fireworks - designed by technical director Wilfred Wells . The Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, annual displays such as the Cowes Week Regatta, and November 5 festivities cemented Pain's position as organisers of the largest displays in Britain. Abroad, Pain's also produced displays for the accession of the Emir of Qatar, and national celebrations as far afield as Grenada. In 1981 King Sobuza of Swaziland celebrated his diamond jubilee with Pain's fireworks. John Deeker married, in 1956, Pamela Pearce, who survives him with their daughter and three sons . John Deeker, born May 15 1931, died June 3 2012