Robert Ford - Telegraph During his sojourn in the capital, Ford attended many social functions thrown by the Tibetans, who loved picnics, partying, drinking, singing and dancing; a keen dancer himself, Ford introduced the samba to Lhasa. Then, after three months, Fox came back and Ford went to the Political Mission in Sikkim, where he served as radio operator until 1947 . During this period he encountered Dmitri Nedbailof, a White Russian who had fled across Siberia to China and thence walked to India, where he had been interned during the war. He had escaped to Tibet but was turned back to Sikkim. Later, under the patronage of a Tibetan noble, he would be employed in Lhasa for his electrical skills, where Ford would meet him again. When India achieved Independence, Ford was invited by the Tibetan government to install and develop the country's first broadcasting station, Radio Lhasa . Accordingly, he became the first of five foreigners to be formally employed by the Tibetans from 1947 to 1950 (Heinrich Harrer was among the other four). After a year in Lhasa (having on one occasion been blessed by the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, an honour normally reserved for the highest ranking officials) he was requested to go to Chamdo, 100 miles from the Chinese border, to improve internal political and trade communications . Along with four Indo-Tibetan radio trainees, Ford travelled in a caravan of 100 animals, 40 porters and 12 soldiers. He was the fourth westerner known to have made the journey. "What worried me most was the Tibetans" habit of stacking cans containing 400 gallons of petrol for the radio generators as wind breaks next to their camp fires," he recalled. By the time he arrived in Chamdo, at 10,500ft above sea level, Ford was sporting a red beard; he shaved it off, and a rumour spread that two Englishmen had arrived: "The whole town had turned out to look at my blue eyes and long nose." For several months Ford lived on the upper floor of the former Summer Palace of the Governor-general of the province . One day, while searching amateur radio wavebands, he made contact with a Mr Jeffries who by chance lived in his home town of Burton-on-Trent, and he was soon able to enjoy a weekly conversation with his parents by radio-telephone. His agreeable life in Chamdo, where there were lavish summer parties, was soon disrupted by threats of Chinese invasion, broadcast by Radio Peking in January 1950. By mid-October the Red Army was on the doorstep, and panic ensued. The Governor, Ngabo Shape, fled to Lhasa, and Ford - having removed the crystals from his radio sets to render them useless - planned to escape south to India; but all the mountain tracks had been obliterated by an earthquake, and he followed the Governor. Both were captured by the Chinese at a monastery near Lamda. Taken back to Chamdo, Ford was interrogated and accused of being a British spy, spreading anti-communist propaganda and of being involved in the murder of a Chinese official. For five months he was not allowed to wash; in solitary confinement in rat-infested cells, he was sometimes forced to sit motionless for 16 hours a day. "I was never struck a single blow," he remembered, "but mentally it was no holds barred. I thought I would go mad. For three years he underwent intensive interrogation and "re-education" . Eventually he signed a false confession , and in May 1954 he was permitted to write to his parents . In December he was sentenced to 10 years" imprisonment, then told he was to be deported - a process which took a further six months. On May 27 1955 he was deported to Hong Kong with six HK dollars in his pocket: "I had to walk 50 yards across a rickety wooden railway bridge - I didn't know whether I would get a bullet in my back." Ford was flown back to London, where he was offered the job of Marconi's representative in Asia. Instead he decided to spend 10 months recuperating and writing a book, Captured in Tibet, which was published in 1957. Although in demand for interviews and lectures, and for occasional journalism, Ford still needed a regular income. His chance came when he was offered a temporary job in the Foreign Office, analysing Chinese propaganda in a covert department. He was twice sent to Saigon in South Vietnam, then to Laos and Cambodia. On his return to Britain he passed an exam for a permanent job in the Diplomatic Service. In 1959 Ford was appointed senior branch information officer in Jakarta, Indonesia, where "two air force pilots attacked the Presidential Palace; our Embassy was next door, and they strafed the road outside. I was holed up for two days. From 1960 to 1962 he served as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, DC. He later had postings in London, Tangier, Angola, São Tomé and Principe , Bordeaux and Gothenburg. He ended his career as Consul General in Geneva, retiring in 1983, a year after being appointed CBE. Having settled in London, Ford renewed his interest in Tibet, and particularly his contact with the Dalai Lama, whom he met whenever the opportunity arose. In the spring of this year the Office of Tibet in London organised a reception for Ford's 90th birthday. He had earlier joked that he had not received his back pay, so he was presented with the last of his salary, a 100-srang bank note, with apologies for the delay "due to extenuating circumstances." The respect shown to him by the Tibetan community in exile on this occasion moved him deeply. Robert Ford married, in 1956, Monica Tebbett, whom he had known since his school days. They had met again in 1955 after Ford's release when she was on leave from the United Nations in New York, where she worked in the office of the Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold. She died last year, and he is survived by two sons. Robert Ford, born March 27 1923, died September 20 2013