Monday 2 May 2022 The Guardian •
7
Lily Allen, singer and songwriter,
37 ; Harriett Baldwin, Conservative
MP, 62 ; David Beckham, footballer,
47 ; Stephen Daldry, director,
61 ; Sir James Dyson, inventor,
75 ; Michael Grandage, theatre
director, 60 ; Kate Green, Labour
MP, 62 ; Engelbert Humperdinck,
singer, 86 ; Bianca Jagger, activist,
77 ; Brian Lara, cricketer, 53 ; Lady
(Dawn) Primarolo, former Labour
MP and minister, 68; Carole
Souter, master, St Cross College,
Oxford, 65 ; Isla St Clair, actor, 70;
Sir David Suchet, actor, 76; Alan
Titchmarsh, horticulturist and
broadcaster, 73; Stephen Venables,
mountaineer and writer, 68; Phil
Vickery, chef, 61; Jimmy White,
snooker player, 60; Lord (Harry)
Woolf, former lord chief justice of
England and Wales, 89.Birthdays
[email protected]
@guardianobitsOther
lives
Gillian Brown
Teacher of children with behavioural
and emotional diffi culties who
championed education for all
My sister, Gillian Brown, who has
died aged 77 of ovarian cancer,
was a teacher of children with
emotional and behavioural
problems. She was dedicated to this
challenging work and to spreading
the power of education.
She was born in Leeds to
Mary (nee Harrison) and Graham
Myatt, both of whom were the
fi rst in their families to receive a
secondary education and went
on to become teachers.
Gill attended the local girls’
grammar, Allerton high school,
where she was an enthusiastic
student. She trained as a teacher at
Didsbury College (now Manchester
Metropolitan University), qualifying
in 1966. Her fi rst job was at
Boothstown Methodist primary
school in the village of Worsley.
In the late 1970s she moved
to Homelea, in Boothstown, a
special school for children with
behavioural and emotional
problems, some of whom were in
care. She worked there till the early
90s, teaching home economics
and textiles as well as literacy and
numeracy to mixed-age classes.
Gill met Adrian Brown in the
late 70s. They married in 1980 and
had three children. At home, Gill
was a tremendous role model:
a n intelligent woman with a
Muriel Chamberlain
The Rev Tony Crowe
Andrzej Twardzicki
Radical Anglican priest and early
proponent of same-sex marriage
and the ordination of women
My father, Tony Crowe, who has
died aged 87, was a brave, radical
and controversial priest. Ahead
of his time, he championed the
ordination of women and gay
marriage in the Church of England
and was a longstanding supporter
of the Palestinian cause.
Sincere and wholehearted, he
also took pleasure in rubbing the
establishment up the wrong way
and in the subsequent publicity.
Professor of history, head of
department and fi rst female dean
at the University of Swansea
My friend and colleague Muriel
Chamberlain, who has died aged
89, was the fi rst female dean at the
University of Swansea, and went
on to become professor of history
and head of department.
Muriel was sagacious and
eminently fair, and as a result
was often asked to be on panels
and committees, audit other
universities and act as an external
examiner. Her published work
was chiefl y on empire and
Commonwealth history, but
she also wrote an outstanding
biography of Lord Aberdeen,
the prime minister at the startprofessional career, who provided
for the family on equal terms
with her husband. She strongly
encouraged her children to make
the most of their education.
After she retired, Gill worked as
a relief teacher across the Greater
Manchester area. In the late 90s
she took on the main burden of
supporting our increasingly frail
parents. Then, from 2008 until
2013, Gill helped to look after her
two grandsons when her elder
daughter followed her mother
into a teaching career.
Gill was warm and funny. She
entertained us with her rapid-fi re
one-liners, delivered deadpan.
A shrewd observer of the world
and its ways, she was an avid
reader , her house a treasure trove
of books. She loved walking and
visiting museums , dressed with
style and was a skilful tailor: she
sewed dresses, jackets, curtains
and wonderful patchwork quilts.
Gill is survived by their
children, Abigail, Caroline and
Harry, by her grandchildren,
Dominic, Tristan and Aria, by
her partner, Eric Donnellan,
and by me.
Helen ForresterPolish resistance fi ghter who came to
the UK at the end of the second world
war and worked as an engineer
My cousin Andrzej Twardzicki,
who has died aged 94, came to the
UK after fi ghting with the Polish
resistance during the second world
war and settled in Britain, where
he became an engineer and then an
academic, lecturing at Queen Mary
University of London and running
postgraduate courses at Imperial
College London.
Andrzej was brought up in
Kraków but born in Lwów (Lviv),
in the Ukrainian part of what was
then the new republic of Poland,
to Jadwiga (nee Siedlecka), who
worked for the Red Cross as a
translator, and her husband,
Tadeusz, an adviser to the Polish
ministry of agriculture.
When Germany invaded Poland
in 1939 his father joined the
resistance, dying in a motorcycle
accident on a secret mission, after
which Andrzej’s older brother,
Franek, joined the resistance in
Warsaw and was killed a year later.
Andrzej himself then joined up in
Kraków and took part in several
ambushes of German patrols.
In 1945, fearing the
consequences of the Red Army’s
approach towards Poland, he set
off with two friends, reaching
the safety of a sector of southern
Germany, where he joined Polish II
Corps, the operational unit of the
Polish Armed Forces in the west. He
was sent by ship to Scotland, where
he lived in barracks for two years,
learning English and passing his
general matriculation, after which
he went to London University to
study electrical engineering.
After graduating, Andrzej
worked for British Thomson-
Houston, an engineering and heavy
industrial company, in Rugby,
Warwickshire. It was in Rugby that
he met his landlady’s niece, Halina
Kornela, a fellow Pole, who had
lost both parents during the secondTony was born in Bristol, the
middle of three boys, to Murray
Crowe, a bank clerk, and Joan (nee
Ehlers). He fi rst felt his calling as a
schoolboy at Clifton college in the
city and was infl uenced by Mervyn
Stockwood’s social ministry in
the poorer districts. He studied
theology at St Edmund Hall,
Oxford, graduating in 1957, and
then trained as a priest at Westcott
House, Cambridge.
He was the fi rst deacon ordained
in the new Coventry Cathedral
in 1959. His fi rst curacy was in
Stockingford, a mining village
near Nuneaton. There he met Ailsa
Wood, a local health visitor , and
they married in 1962.
His distinctive ministry really
took shape when they moved
to London, in the late 1960s to
St John’s, Clapham, and then in
1974 when he became rector at St
Luke’s, Charlton, where he fosteredof the Crimean war. She was
vice-chairman of the Historical
Association and for many years
the editor of the Historian.
Born in Leicester, Muriel was the
only child of Arthur Chamberlain, a
railway station offi cial, and Gladys
(nee Shortland), a teacher and
artist. Her father was posted to
Bristol and Preston, and ended his
career as stationmaster at Leeds;
she went to school in all three cities.
Muriel won a place at St Hilda’s
College, Oxford, in 1951 and gained
a fi rst in history, followed by a
DPhil on European diplomatic
history in the 19th century. After
a spell lecturing at Royal Holloway
College, she moved to Swansea in- Three years later, after her
father retired, her parents came
to live with her.
She became dean at Swansea in
1975 and was appointed a professor
in 1987. In 1989 she was voted head
of department by an overwhelming
margin, and later served a second
term before retiring in 1997, though
she continued to write articles
and revise her books.
Outside academia Muriel was a
member of the Victorian Society,
the Glamorgan History Society, and
was for a long time the chairman
of the trustees of the Cambrian
Archaeological Society. A great
traveller, she visited almost every
country in the world, often alone.
She enjoyed opera and was a
prominent member of the Liberal
Democrats. Latterly, her health
deteriorated and she had to move
to a care home.
Muriel is survived by a number
of cousins.
Michael Simpsona remarkable inclusive church
community. As early as 1978, Tony
“married” a same-sex couple at St
Luke’s. It was a service of blessing,
but was covered by the tabloid press
as a “gay wedding”. His stance on
homosexuality prompted protests
by evangelical groups during
services and a physical assault, and
almost certainly aff ected his church
career progression.
Tony also took practical action
on the ordination of women.
He mentored Liz Canham, who
travelled to the US in 1981 for
ordination in the Episcopal Church.
Three weeks later she was back at
the Charlton rectory celebrating
the eucharist in front of cameras
from the BBC’s Newsnight.
Tony gave compassionate
mentoring to women training for
ordination in the late 80s and 90s,
supporting those knocked back by
hostility and ingrained sexism.Ours was a happy, multi racial
family of six children; two of us
were adopted and one fostered.
Family life in the vicarage was a
very public experience as a wide
cast of people came for dinner or
to stay. Ailsa strongly supported
Tony’s values and provided the
emotional stability that enabled
him to do what he did. Theirs was a
shared social ministry.
Tony and Ailsa left Charlton
in 1994, moving to Whitstable,
in Kent. He became a part-time
prison chaplain at Swaleside and
Emley. They enjoyed retirement,
especially year-round swimming in
the sea, and walking the dogs.
Ailsa died in 2020. Tony is
survived by their children, Justin,
Dominic, Lucy, Kate and me,
13 grandchildren and two great-
granddaughters. Another daughter,
Rachel, died in 2009.
Annabel Croweworld war and had come to Britain
with her aunt. Andrzej coached
her through her A-levels and two
years later they got engaged.
Halina went on to study
medicine and became a doctor.
After they got married in 1962, the
couple enjoyed an adventurous
road trip through Europe, all the
way to Yugoslavia.
Back in Rugby, their fi rst child,
Anna, was born and Andrzej joined
GEC, designing generators for ships
and power stations and other big
infrastructure projects, including
the Kariba dam in Zimbabwe.
After completing a master’s
degree he began a career in
academia, eventually becoming
senior lecturer in electrical
engineering at Queen Mary
University of London and running
postgraduate courses at Imperial
College London. After retirement
in 1985, Andrzej did freelancework for another decade and
made many trips to Poland. A
keen photographer, he captured
dramatic images of Kraków in
1983, when it had fallen under
martial law. He worked for several
charities, including Medical Aid
for Poland, accompanying long-
distance lorries to deliver medical
equipment during the clampdown
on the Solidarity trade union.
A keen mountaineer and
walker, for some years he worked
as a volunteer climbing guide in
the Austrian Alps and the Tatra
mountains in Poland.
He is survived by Halina,
their daughters, Anna, Ewa and
Maja, and grandchildren, Adam
and Verity.
Jo Siedlecka