Geoff Fordham obituary

Other lives: A campaigning trade unionist whose impoverished childhood inspired his career in urban regeneration and neighbourhood renewal

My father-in-law, Geoff Fordham, who has died aged 73 after a spinal operation, was a respected figure in the field of urban regeneration and neighbourhood renewal. His childhood inspired his career.

Born in impoverished, postwar Shepherd’s Bush, west London, he lived in a two-room flat with his mother, Sibyl McCreeth, a clerk at J Lyon’s, Aunt Doll, Uncle Fred and their grownup children, Dot, Barbara and Bob. Geoff’s father, George Fordham, was a colleague of his mother’s at Lyon’s, but left when Geoff was a baby, and died when he was three.

As a newborn, Geoff wore clothes donated to poor people by the royal family after the birth of Prince Charles. An early memory was of his aunt teaching him to read with plastic letters in a cramped scullery.

He enjoyed learning, becoming head boy of St Stephen’s Church of England primary school in 1959, then winning a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital boarding school, Horsham, West Sussex, the following year. His time there exposed him to privilege and problems of class, fuelling his rebellious personality and leftwing politics.

He studied comparative government and Russian from 1967 at Essex University, then a hotbed of radicalism. Despite living on a rickety houseboat in Wivenhoe that eventually sank, he earned a first-class degree in 1971.

In 1973 he married Lillian Stone and began working for the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs union a year later, working closely with Clive Jenkins. His son, Daniel, my husband, was born in 1976, and his daughter, Hannah, in 1979.

He worked as a consultant on early regeneration projects for Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government such as the Inner Cities Task Force Initiative and City Challenge, then developed and evaluated projects and strategies for government, councils, agencies and charities to tackle social inclusion, housing, homelessness, estates renewal and access to employment. After his separation from Lillian in 1987, the following year he met Rachael Knight on task force work. They married in 1990, founding GFA Consulting together a year later.

Working from the Upper Lee Valley to Uzbekistan over the next 20 years, Geoff became a professor in neighbourhood renewal at what is now Birkbeck, University of London, and a lead evaluator on Labour’s New Deal for Communities programme. He became “sort of retired” in 2010.

Remaining one of life’s doers, he led a successful community energy and sustainability project, gained an online MA in history from Edinburgh University, and secured funds for the Wellington Orbit community cinema, near his home in Ketley Bank, Telford, where he had moved in 2017. He also curated film nights there, and was a talented artist and cartoonist, setting up the Subversive Inappropriate Cartoons blog in 2012.

He loved drawing with his grandchildren, Iris, Evan and Ada, often speaking about how amazed his mother would have been by how different their young lives were to his.

He is survived by Rachael, his children and grandchildren.

Contributor

Jude Rogers

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Fred Twine obituary
Other Lives: Researcher, writer and campaigner who worked to bring attention to poverty, welfare, housing and environmental justice issues

Christine Twine

23, Jun, 2023 @5:00 PM

Article image
Gabriel Pearson obituary
Other lives: Teacher of literature who was instrumental in the creation of what became the New Left Review

Caspar Pearson

06, Apr, 2021 @5:29 PM

Article image
Ken Plummer obituary
Other lives: Essex University sociologist who believed that storytelling is central to the way humans act in the world

Arlene Stein

16, Dec, 2022 @12:43 PM

Article image
Pat Coombes obituary
Other lives: Lecturer who helped to set up a controversial social sciences degree course at the Open University

Sue Coombes

28, Dec, 2023 @5:03 PM

Article image
Amal Treacher Kabesh obituary
Other lives: Sociology and psychosocial studies lecturer whose studies were informed by her early upbringing in Egypt

Susannah Radstone

24, Apr, 2022 @3:59 PM

Article image
Geoff White obituary
Other lives: Occupational psychologist specialising in organisational change

Simon White

03, Jul, 2019 @4:49 PM

Article image
Geoff Nichols obituary
Other lives: Jazz trumpeter who led a Bristol band for 50 years

Tom Nichols

03, Jul, 2019 @3:59 PM

Article image
Geoff Whitty obituary
Other lives: Educational sociologist who addressed the central question of what should be taught in schools

Hugh Lauder

12, Aug, 2018 @4:59 PM

Article image
Geoff Davies obituary
Other lives: Record shop owner and promoter who was at the heart of Liverpool’s punk and post-punk musical boom

Anne Davies

06, Oct, 2023 @4:21 PM

Article image
Geoff Morris obituary
Other lives: Cambridgeshire’s chief education officer who achieved national acclaim

Daniel Morris

12, Nov, 2018 @5:39 PM