My stepfather Gren Gaskell, who has died aged 89, was a former miner who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to become a company manager with a passion for learning. In later life he published three books, including poetry and short stories, inspired by his experiences in the coalmining community.
Born in Bulwell, Nottinghamshire, Gren, short for Granville, was the son of John, a miner, and Eliza. John died in a pit accident when Gren was four, and Eliza struggled to look after him and his five siblings. Experiencing hunger and cold as a child made him count his blessings as an adult, as he championed the rights of the less fortunate.
At High Pavement school in Nottingham, Gren was thrown a lifeline by the headteacher’s secretary, Mrs Gunn, who introduced him to Shakespeare and encouraged him to learn. Like most men in his community, after leaving school Gren worked in the mines, while raising a son with his first wife, Beryl, whom he married in 1954. A life-changing moment came when Gunn helped him secure an office job. In the mid-1960s he joined Thorn EMI as a clerk and worked his way up to manage the Rugby branch.
In his spare time, Gren performed as a singer in pubs under the stage name Tony Firelli. A champion of leftwing causes and a Guardian reader, he became a Labour party member aged 18 and a Quaker later in life.
After his retirement in 1994 and Beryl’s death soon afterwards, he moved to Malvern, Worcestershire, where he met my mother, Arline Lillis, at a social history group of the University of the Third Age (U3A).
They married in 2006 and had a lively social circle; Gren loved attending plays and concerts at Malvern theatre. He wrote three books, including Tales from the Golden Bull (2017), and chaired Malvern Writers’ Circle, and the local branch of the U3A. He and Arline enjoyed travelling, with holidays in France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Turkey and Hungary, and even venturing as far afield as Kazakhstan.
For the last few years Gren lived with Lewy body dementia, which he managed with characteristic fortitude.
He is survived by Arline.
