Gretel Ross
Rutherglen & Hamilton West Liberal Democrats are sad to announce the death of former Rutherglen Councillor Gretel Ross who passed away in Brechin on Sunday 16th June 2024, aged 93.
Gretel served as Liberal, later Liberal Democrat, Councillor for Rutherglen North on Glasgow District Council and Stonelaw Ward on the new South Lanarkshire Council from 1980 until her retirement in 2007. On every occasion after the first, she was returned with a huge majority.
Gretel was involved with numerous local organisations, including Landemer, Rutherglen and Cambuslang Housing Association, Rutherglen Carers and Overtoun Park BMX Club which she founded and supported.
She was an ardent community politician, standing up for Rutherglen on many causes over the years in the corridors of power, and fighting for local people and their issues.
Gretel was born and brought up in Silesia which was then in Germany but later became part of Poland. At the age of 14 she had to flee west to escape the advancing Russian army. After the war she met her husband Angus who came from the Black Isle and they settled in Rutherglen where she lived in Rosslyn Avenue for 50 years. Her daughters Gretel and Ursula were brought up there.
Her initial involvement in public affairs was with Rutherglen pre-school Playgroup and with Stonelaw High School PTA and the successful battle to retain a 6 year secondary school in the Royal Burgh when Cathkin High School was built.
Tributes have come in from many people across the local community and the political parties in Rutherglen.
Liberal Democrat Group Leader Councillor Robert Brown said:
“Gretel was a one off and I, like many others, will miss her tremendously.
I had great difficulty in persuading her to stand for the council back in 1980 but, when she did, her first campaign was a revelation. She knew someone in every street in the ward and every block in the West End flats from her time running Rutherglen Pre school playgroup and the Stonelaw PTA. She was simply a superb candidate and Councillor.
She founded and encouraged a dynamic group of Young Liberals and our local Liberal Democrats in Rutherglen were latterly proud to have her as our Honorary President.
She was very loyal but she liked her own way too. There was a time when there were just two of us as Liberal councillors. If a contentious issue came up, we discussed it, she told me her view and that was that. I had to do what I was told!
She never held direct power as a council leader or committee chair but she worked effectively with council officials and politicians across the board to get things done.
After she retired, I was repeatedly struck by just how many people’s lives she had touched, how many causes she had helped and what a difference she had made to people’s lives – often interventions I had not heard about. All the local groups just loved her.
Gretel Ross gave politics a good name - she knew what public service was about.”
Her funeral will take place in Angus on 12th July.
