My friend Deborah Hines, who has died of cancer aged 54, was a university administrator, first at Sheffield and then in York.
She was born in Kirby Muxloe, near Leicester, to Janet (nee Ward), a laboratory technician, and Roger Hines, a tanner. After leaving Loughborough high school, where she had a particular interest in Latin and Greek, Deborah did a degree in classics at Churchill College, Cambridge, and then had a brief spell working on the London Metal Exchange.
I first met Deborah at the University of Sheffield, in 1994, when I took her on as the administrator for a new MSc in railway engineering. I had been in post for two months and hers was the first appointment that I could influence. I was so glad I brought her on board.
In 1997 she moved to be an administrator in the department of human communications at Sheffield, and in 2000 she went to the University of York as an administrator its department of chemistry and later in its department of language and linguistic science. There she was highly regarded for her infectious humour, her pragmatism and above all her dedication to helping students. Conversations with her were always fun, and were often peppered with amusing snippets about examples of academic snobbery or idiocy.
Happily I still had her support for one day every year, when she would run an intensive workshop on academic writing for new engineering students at Birmingham, where I had moved. The guide she wrote as a companion to that workshop was highly valued, and many kept it by their sides.
She was still working from home for York’s language and linguistic science department two weeks before her death, despite being in great pain. Outside of work Deborah was involved for some years in the organisation of our group visits to the the annual Buxton International Festival in Derbyshire.
Twice married and twice divorced, she is survived by her son, Will, from her second marriage, to Russell Turner, and by her mother and her sister, Vanessa.
