A NORTHERN dale has been paying tribute to a lead miner's son who went on to become a distinguished international academic.

During 26 years in Africa, Professor Robert Milburn and other staff at Uganda's leading university had to parade before brutal dictator General Idi Amin after he seized power.

During one visit, he was also introduced to the dictator's friend, Colonel Gadaffi, of Libya.

Later, in quiet retirement in his beloved Weardale, in County Durham, Prof Milburn indulged two great passions - making clocks and restoring a rare organ rescued from a fire-damaged building.

After a long illlness, Prof Milburn died peacefully last week at Horn Hall community hospital in Stanhope with his wife, Doris, and son, John, by his side. He was 83.

His funeral service will take place at 11am on Tuesday at Burtree Ford cemetery, Cowshill, not far from the hamlet of Wham, where he was born.

Prof Milburn had attended the local grammar school and, rare for a boy from such a humble background, he went on to attend King's College, Newcastle, in 1948, emerging with a degree in science.

The young Milburn, with little more than a suitcase, then set off to Uganda to take up a "temporary" one-year post at Makerere University, not far from the capital, Kampala.

After being appointed professor of botany, he was to stay there for 26 years with his wife.

It was with great sadness, he said, that a decade after Uganda was declared independent in 1962 that the country was taken over by General Amin's repressive military regime.

"The academic staff at the university were obliged to meet the cruel tyrant," he recalled. "He could be perfectly charming, but then ..."

Prof Milburn remembered Colonel Gaddafi for his "strange and rambling oration".

As Uganda's political and educational institutions fell into decline, the Milburns decided to return to Britain, where he took up the post of head of botany at London University's Chelsea College. He stayed there until retirement in 1983, receiving an OBE from the Queen for his services to university work.

After moving into their home near Ireshopeburn, in Upper Weardale, Prof Milburn quickly turned his scientific talents to fitting out a clock-making workshop.

Prof Milburn will be best remembered in the dale for his work in restoring a Vincent organ, which had been rescued from the Victoria Hall, in Sunderland, after a fire in which 183 children died on June 16, 1883.

Somehow, the organ found its way to High House Chapel in Weardale, where it remained untouched for 100 years - until Prof Milburn and a team of craftsmen set about repairing it.

Today, it takes pride of place in the chapel - the oldest in continuous use in the world.

Prof Milburn was endowed with many fine attributes and will be remembered as one of Weardale's most distinguished sons.