My husband, Alec Gillies, who has died of cancer aged 58, knew he wanted to be an architect from an early age.
The youngest of three, he was born in Redruth, Cornwall, to William Gillies, a marine engineer, and Isabel (nee Dawson), who gave up working as a chiropodist to bring up her children. The family moved all over the country, living in Falmouth until 1963, then County Durham where, much to his amazement, Alec encountered snow for the first time; he also adopted a local accent.
Arriving in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, in 1972, at Chesham high school (now Chesham grammar school) he quickly lost all traces of his northern childhood. As a schoolboy Alec played the guitar in a band and was a talented sprinter – at one time, he was England’s fastest 18-year-old over 100m.
He studied architecture in Newcastle and London, and joined Edward Cullinan Architects, in London, in 1987. We met at a friend’s garden party in Greenwich in the summer of 1993 and I was drawn to his quiet, shy nature. He sent me a postcard of Fountains Abbey Visitor Centre, North Yorkshire, on which he was working as project architect, and by Christmas we were engaged.
Our daughter, Eve, was born in 1997 and 17 months later our son, Ewan, was born in Winchester, the city which became our home for nearly 20 years, and where Alec was working in Hampshire county council’s architects’ department. He was a devoted father, involved in every aspect of our children’s lives. He shared with them his love of music, art, of his football team, Arsenal, and, of course, architecture. No holiday was complete without an architectural adventure and one camping trip in France included a pilgrimage to see Le Corbusier’s convent in La Tourette, more than 50 miles out of our way.
Alec was never without his notebook and left a collection of them, all filled with drawings, notes and quotations he liked. He never had a discussion without doing a little drawing to describe something. His legacy lives on in his buildings across Hampshire.
He is survived by me, Eve and Ewan, and by his sister, Jean, and brother, John.
