Terence Oliver CEng FIET, June 1941 - January 2020
Published: Thu 30 Jan 2020
Terence, known as Terry, enjoyed a long and productive career in telecommunications and management consultancy and an active retirement before succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the age of 78.
Terry’s early years were spent in Coventry, under the shadow of German bombers; he recalled a Morrison shelter in the dining room and walking with his mother through rubble-lined streets on the way to the shops. His family subsequently moved to Bridgwater, Somerset, where he studied for his A-levels at Dr Morgan’s Grammar School before joining Cable and Wireless in 1959. After eighteen months of training at Porthcurno, he was posted to Fiji. He had four happy years there, working at the radio transmitting station in Suva and helping to test the new Commonwealth Pacific Cable, whilst also taking the opportunity to trek into the interior and explore outlying islands.
Terry returned to Porthcurno for advanced training in 1965. He became a graduate of the IERE that same year, winning the President’s Prize for best overall student. After some short overseas postings, he left Cable and Wireless and joined the West Midlands Gas Board, and then British Rail as a telecommunications engineer, first in Glasgow and then in London. He became a member of the IERE in 1970 and a fellow in 1978.
Terry then moved into management consultancy, taking up a position with Logica, where he worked on a variety of telecommunications contracts and projects, many international in scope. His travels continued through the 1990s when he joined Deloitte & Touche; he was closely involved in a project to modernise the recently reestablished Budapest Stock Exchange after the end of the Cold War.
Terry retired from Deloitte in 2000 and was able to devote much of the next two decades to church and community work. He actively supported his local branch of Prison Fellowship, whilst also serving as a wildlife conservation volunteer, helping to advise those living, like himself, with a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and taking a leading role in consultations about development planning in his home village of Lindfield, Sussex. He won an award for community service from Mid Sussex District Council. In 2012, Terry and his wife Christine also won a prize from the Royal Horticultural Society and Wildlife Trust for their creation of a large residential garden friendly to birds, insects and other wildlife, including their six grandchildren. After a busy career, he was able to relax and really enjoy the pleasures of family life.
Terry is survived by his wife Christine, his brothers David and Paul and sister Janet, his sons, Edmund and Kendrick, and his grandchildren, Chloe, Toby, Holly, Esmé, Elias and Mia. He will be dearly missed by all.