My friend Gaynor Ithell, who has died aged 52 after a short illness, was a senior civil servant from a working-class background. She was also a talented and inventive abstract painter.
Gaynor was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside, to Joyce, who worked in the DHSS, and her husband George Ithell, a travelling shoe leather salesman. She was a clever child but, with few opportunities available, she was guided towards a variety of clerical jobs, which she found dull. On the suggestion of her mother, she entered the civil service in Liverpool as a junior in 1980, and subsequently applied to join Margaret Thatcher's office in Downing Street, which she did in 1984.
Continue reading...