THE former chairman of British Leyland, Lord Stokes, who died earlier this week at his home in Poole at the age of 94, will always be a controversial figure in the history of the nation's car industry.

While some blame him for the decline of British motor manufacturing, others see him as a talented businessman whose efforts to run the fifth largest car manufacturer in the world profitably were wrecked by trade unions and the government.

Donald Stokes was regarded as an eccentric at public school because he wanted to study engineering and work in a factory.

He served his apprenticeship with bus and truck manufacturers Leyland during the 1930s and became export manager after serving in the Army during World War Two.

He was made a director in 1954, then chairman in 1967.

Great names such as Triumph, Rover, Austin, Morris, Daimler, Jaguar, MG and Land Rover were brought under the company's umbrella through a series of takeovers and mergers.

But with BMC - which made Minis and MGs among others - the company inherited financial and management problems. There were also constant strikes and some clunky designs, such as the Morris Marina and the Austin Allegro.

In a 1989 interview with the Daily Echo, Lord Stokes recalled: "Whatever move my management made to try and improve a product or facility, the unions called a strike.

"We should have been fighting with the unions, not against them. We should have been united against the Japanese.

"We also had endless interference from the government.

"For example, we were instructed to build factories in places that were obviously uneconomic."

He and his first wife Laura, who had one son, bought their clifftop Branksome Park flat as a weekend home in the 1970s and moved there permanently after he left British Leyland, which was nationalised under the then Industry Minister Tony Benn.

Lord Stokes became a well known figure in the town, presenting the Poole edition of the BBC programme "All Change For" back in 1979. He became founding chairman of 2CR and branch president of the Ferndown Muscular Dystrophy Group in 1980. A keen sailor, he also actively supported the Sea Cadets.

Knighted in 1965, he became a life peer four years later and was a cross-bencher in the House of Lords. Following Laura's death in 1995, he married the current Lady Stokes, Patricia, in 2000.