My wife, Maureen Towlson, who has died aged 89, became a social worker in Birmingham in the 1980s after spending much of the earlier part of her life as a housewife.
She started out in 1983 as a support worker at the St Basils centre, Birmingham, a voluntary organisation providing services to young homeless people, where she worked mainly with vulnerable women. In 1986 she became a social worker with Birmingham city council in Edgbaston, assessing the needs of older people.
