Denis Haviland

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Biographical Information

DENIS HAVILAND, who has died aged 89, in 2000.

"After experience as a railwayman, a soldier and a diplomat, Haviland became deputy secretary at the Ministry of Aviation in 1959. His minister was Duncan Sandys, and together they pushed through a rationalisation of the British aircraft industry which ruffled many feathers... Haviland had hoped to become head of the Ministry of Defence, but that was not to be and in 1964 he was recruited by another former Conservative minister, Aubrey Jones, as managing director of the machine tool company Staveley Industries, of which Jones was chairman. He succeeded Jones the next year, and proceeded to do battle with Tony Benn, as Minister of Technology, over government interventions which Haviland believed - with justification - would lead to the demise of British machine tool makers in favour of German manufacturers.

"He retired from Staveley for health reasons in 1969; among other ailments, he suffered arthritis as a result of breaking his hips in an undergraduate skiing accident. A friend eventually recommended him to visit a gifted healer - the wife of a major-general - who swiftly had him walking without sticks.

"He developed a deep interest in healing, and in 1981 he became the founder chairman of the Confederation of Healing Organisations, encompassing 16 member groups and 12,000 healers; they were subject to a strict code which included never charging for their work. He was also chairman of the Holistic Cancer Council and a committee member of the British Complementary Medicine Association..."