Dorothy Rushworth
POLLYANNA PICKERING, who has died at 75, was a renowned wildlife artist and conservationist whose work adorned the shelves of Harrods and the homes of David Bowie and the actors John Hurt and Virginia McKenna.
Born in Rotherham and educated at the town’s art school and later the Central School of Art and Design in London, she was also an indefatigable champion of environmental conservation, both on the national and international stage.
Before she had decided to focus exclusively on wildlife, Bowie – who had bought an industrial landscape from her – asked her to go to Africa with him, as an “artist-in-tow”.
But her daughter Anna-Louise was only seven, and in fear of snakes and spiders, she declined.
Instead, she became one of Europe’s foremost wildlife artists, her paintings reproduced on greeting cards, T-shirts, notebooks and ceramics. The tote bag she created for Harrods with a picture of a West Highland terrier was a perennial bestseller, and it was she who painted the Christmas bear on to the store’s gift range every year.
But she did not have an artistic background – her father owned a coffee business in Sheffield. However, she recalled drawing something for a teacher at primary school and being asked to take it around the other classes to show it off.
Even so, when at secondary school she announced that she wanted to pursue art as a career, her headmistress told her she would never make a living from it.
Nevertheless, the foundation course on which she enrolled at Rotherham Art College set her on a course for life, both professionally and personally. It was there that she met her future husband, the industrial designer Ken Pickering.
Her insistence on painting only animals she had observed in their natural habitats led her into a series of expeditions to some of the most inhospitable areas of the globe. In 2007, she was granted a fellowship from the Canada-based society Artists for Conservation Foundation to undertake an expedition into Bhutan.
Her love of wildlife extended beyond its representation as art. For 15 years she ran a sanctuary from her home in the Peak District, at first caring for and rehabilitating injured and orphaned raptors and later garden birds and almost every species of British mammal. She estimated that many hundreds of owls, hawks and falcons had passed through her care.
In 2001 the Pollyanna Pickering Foundation was established to continue her work. The launch party was attended by guests from Spain, Holland, France, Germany and Japan, and the first fundraising event, a celebrity garden party, was held that summer.
As well as supporting wildlife, the foundation helps to support an orphanage in Ethiopa.
Ken died in 1979 and Pollyanna is survived by Anna-Louise, who was also her business partner. TIM WRAY was a businessman who had a 45-year career with the global construction consultancy Turner & Townsend.
Mr Wray, who has died at 69 following a short illness, served as chairman of the Leeds-based firm until late 2016.
He spent his entire career with the company and during his time it rose to be one of the world’s biggest construction consultancy outfits.
Born in North Yorkshire, he was educated at Ripon Grammar School before going on to attend the University of North London.
He initially joined Turner & Townsend as an assistant quantity surveyor based in Darlington before relocating in 1979 to the firm’s headquarters in Horsforth as a senior cost engineer. The next year, he was appointed associate partner.
He would relocate again in 1982, this time to Johannesburg, South Africa, to head up heavy engineering and mining projects.
It was during this time that he established a longstanding affection for the continent, and he greatly enjoyed holidaying in the South African bush.
He also established many toy libraries in South Africa to help disadvantaged families.
Mr Wray would spend the next 18 years in Johannesburg and helped establish a total of five more offices in Africa. In 1999, he became chairman and senior partner.
Perhaps the best testimony to his abilities as a businessman were the three Queen’s Awards for Export the company amassed during his tenure as chairman.
Among the major projects he DOROTHY RUSHWORTH, who has died at 90, was a charity stalwart in Scarborough, where she founded a branch of the Alzheimer’s Society after nursing her husband through the condition.
Originally from Wath-onDearne, Rotherham, she gained her Higher School Certificate at 17 and was given the opportunity to study history at Queen Mary College in London.
But the Blitz caused her relocation to Cambridge, and when she returned to the capital after a year, only part of Queen Mary still stood.
She carried on at Kings College and Birkbeck College, gaining her degree at 20, and going on to gain qualifications in shorthand, typing and bookkeeping before completing teacher training in Huddersfield.
She taught at colleges in Maidenhead, York and Barnsley, becoming a senior lecturer. At Barnsley she met a fellow teacher, Charlie, who would become her husband.
The two of them moved to Scarborough in retirement in 1983, but Dorothy noticed that Charlie’s memory was failing, and a diagnosis of dementia worked on domestically were the Shard building in London.
He also created the Chairman’s Group, a global initiative which challenges the firm’s staff to provide bold, insightful and practical solutions to real issues in the business.
At the time of his retirement the company boasted a turnover in excess of £400m and employed just under 4,300 consultants.
To date it has 104 offices in 44 countries, with a presence in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific and Africa.
Colleagues at the firm paid tribute to their former chairman with Vincent Clancy, the chief executive, describing him as a “well-respected industry figure, dedicated to championing the development of our people, at every stage of their career”.
Mr Clancy also said he was “a visionary and a strong leader – astute, generous and charismatic”.
He was married to Christine and had three daughters and an extended family of grandchildren. followed. As his condition worsened, she became his fulltime carer. He died at Tree Tops Nursing Home in 1990.
It was around this time that she and the late Terry Compton, who owned Tree Tops, decided to form a local branch of the Alzheimer’s charity. She said that having seen what it had done to her husband, she was determined to raise awareness and funds. She went on to serve as branch chairman, treasurer and secretary, and was instrumental in helping raise hundreds of thousands of pounds over the years.