My father, Peter Seeley, who has died aged 85, was lucky to have lived at all. Born in Coventry, he weighed in at under 3lb at birth. He was placed in one of the first mobile incubators (it was 1933) and driven to Birmingham, with the ambulance stopping every few miles to check if he was still alive.

The journey was worth it. Although Peter was born colour blind and had a foreshortened arm with only three digits, they were both conditions that he was able to manage.

Peter also came close to an early death during the bombing of Coventry in the second world war. In November 1940 his house took a direct hit, and the force of the explosion lifted the family’s buried Anderson shelter, where they were hiding, five feet upwards.

This, and the trauma he experienced while walking through the devastated city, seeing the bodies of schoolfriends left on the pavement, never left him, and he suffered greatly from post-traumatic stress disorder in subsequent years.

Peter was the youngest of three sons of Ethel (nee Dalton), a factory worker, and her husband, Archibald Seeley, who died when Peter was 10. Partly due to his “nerves” Peter was sent to the residential Wyre Farm school in Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire, from where he left to start work at 14 on the production line at the Morris car factory in Coventry, remaining there until it was closed down in 1970.

He never lost his sense of grievance over the shutdown. When he later got a job at the Coventry College of Education (since amalgamated with the University of Warwick) in 1972, he became a shop steward. Somewhat alarmingly, given his colour blindness, his work at the college as an electrician’s mate relied on an ability to distinguish between colours when rewiring. However, he stayed in the job – without mishaps – until he retired in 1997.

Peter was a wonderful storyteller, and his tales of his early life, especially the times he spent at Wyre Farm with its sour milk ration each day, freezing dormitories, and mischievous boys up to all sorts of antics, filled our childhood. It is testament to his positive attitude that we were never aware we had grown up with someone with disabilities.

In 1958 he married Frances Smith. In many respects he was a “new man” before the term was invented, supporting Frances to train as a teacher, doing the weekly shopping and teaching DIY skills to me and my brother, Christopher.

He is survived by Frances, Christopher and me, and four grandsons.