My mother, Jean Perraton, who has died aged 88, was a town planner, environmental campaigner, author and promoter of outdoor swimming.
As a member and later chair of the Cam Valley Forum, Jean was instrumental in the campaign to gain designated bathing water status on the river at Sheep’s Green in Cambridge, which succeeded in 2024. Projects also included the eradication of floating pennywort in the upper Cam.
Jean served as president of the River and Lake Swimming Association (2008-13), and published two books, Swimming Against the Stream (2005) and One Musician’s War (2011), based on her father’s wartime letters.
Born in Eastbourne, East Sussex, Jean was the elder daughter of Maud (nee Bartley), a teacher, and George Warner, a salesman and gifted violinist.
Jean’s earliest memory was of crawling under barbed-wire sea defences to swim with her father. As the war progressed, Jean, along with her mother and her sister, Julie, were evacuated to her paternal grandparents’ home in Rushden, Northants, while George served as a motorcycle despatch rider in north Africa. On returning to Eastbourne the girls enjoyed a free-range childhood – swimming, sailing, walking and cycling.
Money was tight and extra income came from taking in holiday boarders, the whole family cramming into one room to make space. These early years contributed to a fierce belief in outdoor pleasures and the conservation of resources.
At Eastbourne high school, Jean was a determined and conscientious pupil. The headteacher encouraged her to sit the Cambridge entrance exam, and Jean gained a place at Girton College to study geography. After graduation in 1958, she spent a year teaching at Oberlin College, Ohio, before returning to the UK and employment as a planning assistant at Kent county council.
In 1960 she married Hilary Perraton, whom she had met at Cambridge, and Jean balanced raising their two children, my brother, Jonathan, and me, with her career.
In 1973 Hilary was posted to Botswana for his work with the International Extension Council. Jean was reluctant to go, having just been awarded a research grant for her work in evaluating land use plans. However, she went, and found work planning for new neighbourhoods. After presenting a paper to the government on the lack of a strategy to guide use of western aid, she was made head of the new regional planning department. This proved the most satisfying work of her career, as she was able to directly effect change.
Back home in 1975, Jean was appointed an assistant planner with Cambridgeshire county council. She rose to the position of group leader of policy analysis, although she always believed that, unlike in Botswana, her gender had hampered her professional career in the UK.
From 1991 Jean enjoyed a fulfilling retirement, campaigning to protect and improve the River Cam and its surroundings. She continued walking, swimming, playing the piano and sculpting until the last year of her life.
Hilary died in 2021, and Jonathan in 2023. Jean is survived by me and a granddaughter, Ruby.
