My mother, Glenys Thomas, who has died aged 87, devoted her life to helping others and challenging injustice in many forms. For more than 50 years she lived in Birmingham, where in the 1970s and 80s she taught and trained social workers at Selly Oak College, specialising in racism awareness and women’s studies. She was also a trustee of Martineau Gardens, the therapeutic community charity in Edgbaston.
Born on a farm in Hampden, in the Cotswolds, Glenys was the daughter of Alice (nee Smith), who came from a family of non-conformist Liberals; her father, Gordon, hailed from north Wales. Both parents were equally determined that all three of their daughters should have opportunities. At Westwood’s grammar school in Northleach, Glenys was the only girl taking science, a path chosen with medicine in mind, but she preferred people to anatomy and went on to study psychology at Reading University.
There she displayed both wit and conviction, once entering a beauty pageant dressed as an old woman pushing a pram to take the mickey out of the contest, an appearance that marked the end of such events on campus.
After graduating in 1959, Glenys joined the United Nations Association during World Refugee Year, working in displaced persons’ camps in Austria for UNHCR and as “Head Sister” in a camp run by the Quakers, organising volunteers and helping refugees build community life. She also led an effort to deliver knitted blankets from the same Austrian refugees to families in newly independent Algeria – driving a donated truck through France, Spain and Morocco.
She worked in Algeria for four years, helping to build schools and in medical clinics before returning to Britain to complete a postgraduate diploma in youth work at Manchester University. There she met Les Essex, sharing his belief in social justice and commitment to detached youth work. They married in 1968 just before moving to East Africa, where they taught until 1972.
They went on to have two children – my sister, Katie, and me. In later life Glenys continued to inspire others through teaching, mentoring and activism, including at Greenham Common and for young people with ME; and caring for my father after Parkinson’s disease led to his early retirement in the 1990s from Birmingham University, where he lectured in social policy and social administration. Her compassion, humour and fierce independence left a lasting impression on those who knew her.
My father died in 2011. Glenys is survived by Katie and me.
