My brother Ian Gilchrist, who has died aged 69 after complications due to cancer, was a software salesman who served as a Liberal Democrat councillor in Bath for many years, and in 2017-18 as the city’s mayor.
He was born in Oxford to Dorothy (nee Hudson), a teacher, and Andrew Gilchrist, a chemical engineer. The family lived in Cheshire for his first few years and then moved to Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. The eldest of five children, he went to St Albans school and then Magdalen College, Oxford, taking a degree in philosophy and psychology.
Friendship with an Iranian lodger encouraged Ian to travel to Iran after graduating in 1976, and he taught English at the University of Tehran, exploring a new landscape of mountains and deserts. The Iranian revolution forced him to leave three years later, after which he found work with the British Council in Ljubljana, then in Yugoslavia and now in Slovenia.
There he met a local woman, Gordana Djokic. After Ian had a brief spell teaching English in Saudi Arabia, they married in 1981 and lived in Ljubljana, where he translated material for the Unesco Centre for Chemical Education, until they came to the UK in 1983 and settled in Bath, Somerset.
Ian and Gordana lived in Bath for the rest of their lives, raising their two sons, Robert and James, while Ian worked as a salesman for a software company, Cifer, in Melksham, before doing the same for IPL in Bath, taking early retirement in 2013.
He joined the Lib Dems in 2003, and represented Widcombe ward in Bath as a councillor for 12 years until 2019. He was also elected chair of Bath and North East Somerset council before becoming mayor. As a player of many instruments, including the cello, banjo, oboe and mandolin – and having founded the Widcombe Mummers in 2005 – he made music the theme of his mayoral year.
As he got older, Ian added sailing, beekeeping, mead-making, bridge and backgammon to his fondness for travel and mountaineering. Inspired by his love for Iran and Persian poetry, he had recently begun to study for a master’s degree in Persian studies at Soas University of London.
He was a constant source of advice and encouragement to his friends and family, and his tastes and sense of adventure were an inspiration to many.
Ian is survived by Gordana, Robert and James, two grandchildren, Amelia and Holly, and three of his siblings, Michael, Alison and me.
