Death of Probation Service war veteran

Peter Millett, a well-known County Probation Officer who worked in Mid and East Devon, Exeter Prison and was one of a number of outstanding Probation Liaison Officers to the Crown Court, has died aged 90.  A wise and charming man of great integrity, he was an important influence on those he came into contact with during his twenty years with the then Devon Probation Service. He epitomised all that was best in that role: exercising a disciplined discretion while encouraging someone who might potentially be dangerous to face up to their responsibilities to both courts and the community.

He was born in 1925 in Karwar on the West Coast of India where his father was serving in the forestry department of the British Administered Indian Civil Service. He grew up learning Indian languages until coming to England for schooling.  Due to go to Oxford University, the war found him commissioned in The Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He was then seconded to the Indian Army’s 15/16 Punjab Regiment, serving on the North West Frontier in the face of a possible Japanese invasion. After the war ended he remained with the army until early 1947 when, returning to England for demobilisation, he re-joined his parents, now living in Devon.

There he met his future wife’s father, an old India hand, who encouraged him to take up a career in tea plantation management. His first tour was in Assam. Another was in Madras from which he moved with wife and three daughters to the Pambra Estate in Kerala in 1958. Working there for the Bombay-Burma Corporation he oversaw some 12,000 acres of jungle; extracting timber and planting teak, coffee and pepper. The size of the estate meant the family could enjoy great independence. There he developed a fondness for the working elephants on the Estate and also immersed himself in local culture. He became fluent in Tamil and enjoyed regular excursions to temples and historic sites; discovering an oriental sense of time ─ anything between sunrise and sunset! The family returned to England in 1970 and Peter Millett to Probation training.

After retirement he pursued his favourite pastime, antique auctions predominately focussed on Indian and Asian art, a field in which he was a respected expert. He enjoyed travelling, relished any chance to return to India and made several trips to Lourdes assisting people with their pilgrimages. Throughout his life he had a great love of exotic animals. He started with Nadia, a monkey, in Assam and later a leopard (which unfortunately ate his wife’s dog) and a bear: both came to England and were placed in zoos. In retirement he enjoyed exotic dogs, Shar Peis (large dogs with wrinkled skins) and Dingo, his beloved Australian Herding Dog. His family describe him as an immensely loving man, with a huge sense of humour and famous charm so that, in addition to judges and magistrates and those he supervised as a Probation Officer, there are many people across the world whose lives have been enriched by his company.