My wife Kay Whittle, who has died of cancer aged 75, was among the first women to become a director of social services, in Cumbria in 1988. She was a prodigiously talented individual whose achievements were surpassed only by her modesty.
She started out in social work as a child protection officer with Birmingham social services in 1970. Committed to the safety of children, she did night call-outs in the toughest estates, often with a police escort. By 1987 she was at the head of North Oxfordshire social services.
Kay then played a pivotal role in the investigations leading to the Cleveland child abuse inquiry after many children were removed from their families; she re-energised Cleveland’s child protection services and in 1988 was appointed director of social services in Cumbria. For 10 years Kay fulfilled the role with distinction.
Born in Newcastle, to Elizabeth (nee Harlock), a primary school headteacher, and Ian McGregor, an engineer, Kay was educated at Edgbaston high school in Birmingham and the Mount school, a Quaker school in York. Though her proposal to her head that she should study sociology at Essex University was met with a cold stare, Kay was not deterred.
On leaving university, she started work in Birmingham, where she and I met, set up on a blind date on New Year’s eve that year by a mutual friend. We married in 1972 at the Bournville Quaker Meeting House.
From 1998 onwards, Kay served on the General Medical Council’s Fitness to Practise Panel, an independent tribunal examining complaints against doctors (and, later, dentists). Her skills in mastering complex evidence, her incisive questioning and humane appreciation of the pressures on doctors made her an irreplaceable colleague.
In 2004, she became a director of the Retreat hospital in York – a Quaker hospital specialising in the mental health of young people. Rich or poor, “posh” or not, all were equal in Kay’s eyes, and people knew it.
In retirement, our chief pleasure was exploring the remoter parts of Scotland and its islands. Kay’s enjoyment of landscape was infectious.
She was an expert gardener and plantswoman, a keen naturalist, choir member and yacht skipper, an indefatigable fellswoman and skier, and a superb cook who delighted in entertaining friends. She was also a much loved godmother to 11 young people.
Kay is survived by me, her sister, Ann, and four nephews and a niece.
