Ros (Rosemary) Gillham (1947-2009):
an appreciation
Ros Gillham was a great champion of guidance and a past chair of the National Association for Educational Guidance for Adults (then known as NAEGS). Viv Rivis, Jonathan Brown and Martin Oakeshott write:
A native of Leeds, Ros attended Lawnswood High School before studying biochemistry at the University of Birmingham, then gaining an MSc in Immunology. After voluntary service in Africa and working first as a teacher in Leeds and then as a community educator in London, she became coordinator of the Wandsworth Education Shop (WES) in 1984, not long after NAEGS was founded in 1982. At that time the major cluster of such services was in London where the Inner London Education Authority funded borough-based services which operated under a range of different names. The service led by Ros at Wandsworth had clear aims consistent with those promoted by NAEGS:
WES aims to make its service accessible to those people in the local community who for reasons such as race, sex, class, sexuality or disability, have an unequal chance of gaining access to the education and training they need.
She was assiduous in putting these principles into practice:
"Working with adults who were returning to education, Ros was able to use her qualities of patience, care, integrity and optimism to great effect. Her encouragement and persistence opened up opportunities for many clients and also for her staff team."
- Martin Oakeshott, former Senior Advice Worker, WES
Ros Gillham and her colleagues were early members of NAEGA/S, whose aim was to provide a voice for educational guidance services for adults which were then unevenly spread throughout the UK. Ros soon became a member of the national executive of NAEGA and colleagues quickly came to appreciate the way in which she worked. She earned the warm respect of her peers by her quiet commonsense and intelligent approaches to key issues. She was a joint author of the NAEGA/S response to the major UDACE report The Challenge of Change: Developing Educational Guidance for Adults. That response was followed by her election as the second chair of NAEGS in 1986. In that role she gained many friends throughout the UK by her calmness and methodical approach to issues facing the new organisation:
"Ros Gillham made a really significant contribution to the development both of guidance for adults and NAEGS/NAEGA."
- Professor Jonathan Brown, founding chair of NAEGS and second president
As well as running one of the best- funded and well-respected guidance services in the London area, and national activity with NAEGS, she was a voluntary contributor to the government-funded National Educational Guidance Initiative (1988-93).
"I first met Ros when we both spoke at one of the earliest NAEGS conferences in 1985, about our respective guidance services, hers in Inner London, and mine in Bradford. Though the organisation was different, the underlying philosophies were very much the same, committed to work with disadvantaged adults who had missed out on education. Ros became chair of NAEGS at a challenging period in its history, when the need for adult guidance was still to be demonstrated and when guidance staff working with adults had no other specific forum. Her even-handedness and ability to see both sides of any issue was especially valuable to the organisation.
"Later, when I was appointed head of the National Educational Guidance Initiative for England and Wales, under Jonathan Brown's chairmanship, she chaired the group overseeing the creation of a Handbook for educational guidance services for adults, keeping me on track when deadlines were slipping, and always providing wise and thoughtful advice. As a result of that work together, she became a much-loved and supportive friend to me and my family."
- Vivienne Rivis, former president, NAEGA
Ros's calm and balanced approach qualified her ideally for her subsequent work in counselling. Working first for the London Fire Brigade, and later for Workplace Wellbeing in Sheffield, where she relocated in 2001. There she worked with NHS staff, especially paramedics and ambulance personnel who dealt regularly with people in traumatic circumstances, and developed a code of practice for trauma work. She also maintained her links with education by working with the counselling team at Sheffield Hallam University Student Services Centre.
She was committed to her psychotherapy training, gaining her accreditation, passing her Gestalt psychotherapy diploma and continuing in private practice after her retirement in 2007, when she was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. A keen walker with her faithful dog, Bryn, and a great lover of the Welsh and northern hills, she faced recurrent illness with great fortitude, even attending her niece's wedding five days before she died. She leaves two sisters, Rachel and Cath, and her brother-in-law, her niece and nephew, and many friends and colleagues who miss her deeply.
Vivienne Rivis, Jonathan Brown and Martin Oakeshott, with grateful thanks to Rachel Gillham, January 2010.