MONMOUTH historian and author Keith Kissack MBE has died at the age of 96.

Keith was a magistrate, member of Monmouth Borough Council and Fellow of the Society of Antiquities, and produced a remarkable series of books, the last of which came out in time for his 90th birthday.

Born in Shropshire, the son of a vicar, Keith attended an extraordinary prep school in Yorkshire and then Durham School, where he excelled at cricket and rugby.

He trained as a teacher in London while living and working at the Docklands Settlement in Canning Town.

At the outbreak of war, Keith enlisted with the Green Howards and served in Palestine, Persia and in Italy, where he was seriously wounded.

Before he was demobbed he was made adjutant of a re-settlement centre for Polish soldiers – a project for which his work was acknowledged at a formal ceremony at the Polish Embassy in 1998.

Keith married a Monmouth girl, Audrey Jones, in 1939, and after the war moved to Dixton Cottage where the couple raised their two daughters.

Keith was also well-known locally as a teacher, and later headmaster of Priory Street School, and for his work with Monmouth Museum, the Local History Centre and the Regimental Museum at Monmouth Castle.