Ronald Brech - Telegraph The youngest of four children, Ronald Brech was born in Kennington on September 22 1915 into a Roman Catholic family. The family's fortunes took a downturn during the First World War when his Austrian father was interned as an enemy alien, leaving his family dependent on charity provided by the Quakers. In 1934 Ronald was awarded a scholarship to the London School of Economics, where he remained to take a PhD under Professor - later Lord - Lionel Robbins. At the outbreak of war he volunteered for military service and was awarded the Belt of Honour at Sandhurst before being commissioned into the Royal Tank Regiment. He was subsequently seconded to the No 1 Technical and Economic Intelligence Unit attached to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force. His duties included acting as the liaison officer between Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower and he observed that the war with Germany was nothing compared to the war between the two men. After the war, Brech chaired an Anglo-American steering committee which investigated the German war economy. Then, after a spell as assistant editor at The Economist, he was appointed head of the economics and statistics department of Unilever, where he remained for 10 years. In 1963 he published Britain 1984, "an experiment in the economic history of the future," which forecast trends such as the rise of luxury goods and the likely socio-economic impact of the contraceptive pill. Much of Brech's career was devoted to working closely with governments and corporations to introduce techniques such as long term macroeconomic forecasts. He worked as economic consultant to the Commonwealth Economic Committee and as a member of the Cabinet's long-term programmes committee. In the 1960s he was involved in the setting-up of the National Economic Development Council and went on to sit on a number of its committees. In 1964 he became the chairman of Institute of Statisticians. He was visiting professor of Applied Economics at Bradford University from 1973 to 1983. The privation of his early years engendered an indomitable approach to life. Last year, at the age of 95, he succeeded in getting to the top of the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain, on a hired mobility scooter. In a blog he recalled that when he had first climbed the mountain in 1935 it was graded by the International Alpine Club as "Difficult." In 1943 Ronald Brech married Margaret Barlow, who predeceased him. He is survived by their three sons and two daughters. Professor Ronald Brech, born September 22 1915, died August 23 2012