Obituaries - Alan Gilmour

Obituaries 2001

Dr Alan Gilmour C.V.O. M.B.E.

Gilmour: argued that society needed to listen to children and to put their wants first

The Times - Thursday August 2nd 2001

Campaigning director of the NSPCC who worked tirelessly to change public attitudes towards child abuse

ALAN GILMOUR was director of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) between 1979 and 1989. An innovative and progressive campaigner, he oversaw a period of substantial transformation within the children's charity.

Alan Breck Gilmour was educated at Clayesmore School and King's College, London, where he studied medicine before working as a general practitioner between 1958 and 1967. During this period he was a member of the Working Party on General Practice and served on the council of the British Medical Association, and from 1967 until 1979 he was on the BMA Secretariat.

In addition he was appointed as the overseas secretary, and then medical director, of the Commonwealth Medical Advisory Bureau and as secretary to the Board of Science and Education, 1972-76. His distinguished medical career fuelled his commitment to child welfare, and he joined the NSPCC motivated by a desire to improve provision of services to vulnerable children.

When Gilmour joined the society in 1979, it faced many challenges not least a falling level of income with which to provide services for children. He was pivotal in devising and launching the 1983 Centenary Appeal, led by the Duke of Westminster. A series of high-profile fundraising events followed from 1984, which generated great public, business and media interest. Such was the success of the appeal that donations totalled more than Ł14 million, against a previous annual income of Ł3 million. Most of the sum was raised through the society's 30,000 volunteers working through 5,084 district committees attached to 214 branches; he maintained a personal contact with each branch.

This increased income allowed Gilmour to develop new levels of professionalism to further the charity's aims and set in place a vision of good practice that remains today. Over the next five years he oversaw the development of 13 special units, 24 family centres, 65 therapeutic playgroups and various student units to form a national network of child protection teams. Together these provided a range of investigation, treatment, training, consultation and case-conferencing services in collaboration with local authorities.

Under Gilmour's leadership, the NSPCC stepped up its public and professional work. The public were now targeted with renewed vigour, as was evident in the NSPCC's first major multimedia public awareness campaign in autumn 1986. Entitled The Forgotten Children, the campaign used television, cinema and radio advertising, as well as posters and publications, to tell parents, professionals and the public at large about the dangers and long-term consequences of physical and emotional neglect. There was a significant public response, and The Queen reinforced the campaign's impact by making children the theme of her Christmas message in 1986.

Such was Gilmour's charismatic personality that he was able to strengthen the public face of the NSPCC through his extensive contacts with media and childcare professionals alike. To counter those who accused the society of often greatly exaggerating the prevalence of child abuse, Gilmour would argue that society needed to listen to the children, and to put their needs first. Abuse, he said, was "more difficult to spot in the better camouflaged areas. You cannot hear the cries from a castle the way you can from a tenement flat."

Shortly before he retired in 1989 an NSPCC Child Protection Centre in Leicester was opened in his name. The launch of the Full Stop campaign in 1999 showed the NSPCC building on Gilmour's work, seeking to alter many accepted notions surrounding child abuse.

In addition to his book Innocent Victims: the question of child abuse (1988), Gilmour continued to write reports and various articles on child abuse, medical education and practice.

Gilmour's energy and engagement in life continued to find expression in his retirement. He was appointed a vice-president of the NSPCC, and was also actively engaged in other national charities, and increasingly with education. He became a governor of his old school and chairman of Colfox School (the first school in England to be created under the Private Finance Initiative, now the Sir John Colfox Language College); he was also co-founder of the John Colfox Trust, set up in 1995.

He was appointed CBE in 1984 and CVO in 1990.

Alan Gilmour is survived by his wife, Beth, and by their two daughters.

Dr Alan Gilmour, CVO, CBE, Director of the NSPCC, 1979-89, was born on August 30, 1928. He died on July 18, 2001, aged 72.

The Times

Such a man should live to top the hundred, that we might have the mileage of his mind and that he might have a longer look at his roses. To us old Prep School hands there appeared at morning line a quiet chap of about fifteen. He rose through the school and left to do Medicine at King's London. By the time I appeared on my way to St George's he was president of the Medical Society and on his way to the stuff of his 'Times' Obit of 2nd August. Equally impressive is his entry in 'Who's Who'. Three inches of solid achievement by dint of leadership. Tipped into the job of Hon Sec. OC Soc., I had to be seen at Clayesmore on some 'do' and met him again after maybe thirty years plus. A few years before he had faced a serious 'medical' situation. Only one man was prepared to have a go and with great success, luckily. Alan remarked that from then on each day was a bonus and that it was his duty to leave it better than he found it. Given the pathology, I was left more or less gasping in admiration at his raw but understated courage. He died shortly before his 74th birthday, quietly, with good humour and of a condition to be found only in the smallest print as befits a medical man. He had in fact, put in something like a dozen bonus years.

His memorial service held at St Mary's Church, Bridport on 6th October was pretty packed and with tributes from the B.M.A., N.S.P.C.C., The Sir John Colfox School at Bridport, and from Martin Cook, our Headmaster. the School Choir sang Rutter's Lux Aeterna. So ends the man but not his works.

He is survived by his wife, Beth, two daughters and the roses he so enjoyed.

Henry Teed.

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