The big band arranger Brian Fahey, who has died aged 87, was Shirley Bassey's musical director from 1967 to 1972, the composer of BBC radio's Pick of the Pops signature tune, At the Sign Of the Swingin' Cymbal, and principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra for nine years.
His youthful wartime past was extraordinary: he had been a witness to the SS massacre of 80 British prisoners of war at Wormhoudt during the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation.
Fahey was the son of a musician, and born in Margate. He learned piano and cello and became interested in big band arranging and composing.
At the outbreak of the second world war, Fahey, then a clerk with an east London company, and a member of the Territorial Army, was drafted. During the lightning German advance of spring 1940, Lance-Bombardier Fahey found himself with a frontline Royal Artillery unit covering the evacuation of the British expeditionary forces from Dunkirk.
He was wounded in the leg and was captured. On May 28 1940, with 120 other British soldiers of the 48th division, he was herded into a barn. SS soldiers tossed hand grenades into it. They then lined up those who had survived the attack in groups of five and shot them one by one. Fahey, who had been in the second group, was shot in the chest and left unconscious. Four hours later, in the afternoon, he woke in heavy rain. Despite his injuries, he managed to crawl 20 yards to shelter, a painful journey that took three hours. He had broken ribs and a perforated lung, and could not move his left leg at all.
The SS abandoned shooting their captives because it was too slow, and machine-gunned the remaining PoWs until all movement ceased. Then the SS left. When Fahey finally reached shelter, he discovered that 15 of his comrades had survived. Within 48 hours only six were still alive.
Soldiers from the regular German army arrived and Fahey was resigned to his fate. But the Wehrmacht officer in charge, shocked by the sight, quickly provided medical care. Fahey was told that the murderers had been a unit of the 1st Liebdenstarte Adolf Hitler SS Regiment, commanded by General Wilhelm Mohnke. Fahey, amazingly, survived his injuries, but had a lung removed and almost had to have his left leg amputated. He spent five years in PoW camps, during which time he worked on his musical skills.
Demobbed in 1946, he decided that his future lay in the music business. He joined the Musicians Union and became a pianist with the Rudy Starita Band on an Ensa tour of Egypt and Palestine. He met and married band singer Audrey Watkins on that tour.
Fahey played in various bands, but his passion was for arranging. Between 1949 and 1959, he worked for the music publishers Chappells and Cinephonic Music, specialising in arrangements for singers, bands and orchestras, mainly for radio broadcasts.
He also worked on the composition The Creep (1953) for the Ken Mackintosh Band; Fanfare Boogie (1955), which he wrote for the Eric Winstone Band, won an Ivor Novello award.
Fahey freelanced after 1959, working with recording companies, the BBC and in the theatre. He provided scores for movies - The Break (1963), Curse Of The Voodoo (1965), The Plank (1967) and Rhubarb (1969). His music also features in The Alphabet Murders (1965), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Gossip (2001).
Fahey, a friend of Ella Fitzgerald, with whom he shared a birthday, turned down several lucrative contracts to work in the US; he did not want to disrupt family life for his six children, three boys and three girls, with whom he was very close. After his appointment as principal conductor of the BBC Scottish Radio Orchestra (SRO) in 1972, Fahey moved from his Surrey home to the Ayrshire village of Skelmorlie on the west coast of Scotland.
He won many awards, including the MU/BBC arranging award in 1997, and continued to work for the BBC after the disbanding of the SRO in 1981. He was a guest conductor with orchestras around the world. Even in retirement, he continued to compose.
He was always an avid cricket and football fan and a staunch follower of Arsenal. He is survived by his children, 13 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His wife predeceased him.
· Brian Fahey, musician, born April 25 1919; died April 4 2007