My mother, Nia Roberts, who has died aged 92, was a nurse who went on to work for the British Council as a welfare officer and senior administrator in England and then Wales.
Nia was born in Bangor, north Wales, into a Welsh-speaking socialist family, the daughter of John (JH) Griffith, a minister at Capel Mawr in Denbigh, and Sali (nee Jones), a teacher at Howells school in Denbigh, where Nia was a pupil. After leaving school she trained as a nurse at Liverpool Royal Infirmary, where she later worked.
She met Fred Roberts, a curate, in 1947, and they married in 1952, after which they moved south so that Fred could become a vicar in Hatfield Heath in Essex. My mother loathed being a 1950s vicar’s wife, although she made many friends in the village. Living in an enormous, cold vicarage, she and Fred tried valiantly but unsuccessfully to supplement their limited income by breeding corgis.
Nia later worked as a ward sister at Hillingdon House hospital in Harlow from the late 1950s until 1962, when the family moved to Massachusetts in the US. There Fred began a PhD in psychology and Nia embraced the opportunity to see the wider world and meet new people.
After the family returned to the UK, she worked for the London borough of Southwark, using her nursing knowledge to assess housing applications from a health perspective, and in 1973 joined the British Council as an assistant welfare officer.
With her love of meeting new people she had found her metier, and was able to make the most of her immense kindness, nursing background and superb organisational skills. Within two years she had been promoted to welfare officer, and by 1981 she was head of the council’s medical section. She also had a spell with the council in India, where she hugely enjoyed her stay in Delhi and developed a love for the country.
In 1986 she became deputy director for Wales at the British Council in Cardiff. Deeply sceptical of nationalism, she was a shrewd and somewhat discomfited observer of the differences in culture between Wales and England.
After retiring at 60 she was active in her local community in the Pontcanna area of Cardiff, skilfully chaired Alcohol Concern Wales, loved to travel, and rehomed a series of rescue dogs, all of which she loved, whether they were neurotic, rogueish, or just plain soppy.
Nia and Fred were divorced in the early 80s. She is survived by me, a grandson, Jack, and a great-granddaughter, Saga.
