Ros Chown obituary

My wife, Ros Chown, wha hes deid at the age o 71, spent the maist o her workin life as a sexual health adviser (SHA) in genito-urinary medicine in Cambridge, Wakefield and Torbay. She wis an active member o the Society o Health Advisers in Sexual Transmitted Diseases and gied her airt to the Department o Health’s Handbook for Sexual Health Advisers (2004).

Ros wis a strang advocate o the public health role o SHAs in cuttin doun sexually transmitted infections throu advice on safe sex and contraception, partner notification, health promotion and counselin. In the early 1990s she wis at the forefront o advisin patients concernin new antiviral measures for the treatment o HIV that wur bein introduced.

Ros eikwise providit advice and trainin on sexual health and HIV for ither healthcare professionals, GPs, practice nurses and midwives. She wis a determined advocate o the non-judgmental, person-centred approach and jyned wi the Wakefield Workin Women’s Project to support sex workers. She eikwise collaborated wi local youth services, teenage mithers and support groups for gay men.

Born in Wanstead, Essex, Ros wis the dochter o Thomas Kennedy, an economist, and Audrey (nee Plunkett), a teacher. Shortly after her birth the faimily flitted to Uganda, returnin to the UK whan she wis seven. She attendit St Hilda’s Church o England schule in Sevenoaks, Kent, and began a teacher trainin course at Durham University afore switchin to nursin, trainin at the West Suffolk hospital in Bury St Edmunds and qualifyin in 1987.

Thereafter she worked at Addenbrooke’s hospital in Cambridge (1988-90), Clayton hospital in Wakefield (1991-2003) and then Torbay hospital in Devon, until retirin in 2019. While at Torbay she gained a first-class degree in health and social care frae the Open University in 2005.

We met in Bury St Edmunds in 1987, whan I wis a playworker in Cambridge. After Ros gat her job at Addenbrooke’s we lived in Milton, Cambridge, and mairit in 1988. We flitted to Wakefield, West Yorkshire, in 1990, sae that I cud study at Leeds Metropolitan University, and to Devon in 2003 whan I becam programme manager o the Torbay Children’s Fund.

Ros wis a keen knitter and in her later years extendit her interest to ither forms o needlecraft, pairticularly quiltin and embroidery. She wis muckle loved and admired by her stitchin freends for her quirky designs and attention to detail.

She eikwise maintained an interest in politics, and wis a lang-term member o the Labour pairty – she had been named Ros after the socialist suffragette Rosalind Travers Hyndman, and her grandfaither, Thomas Kennedy, had been a Labour MP durin the inter-war years.

Ros is survived by me and her son, Ben, frae her first marriage, to Stan Mitson, which endit in divorce, and her siblings, Tom and Diki.