Siw Thomas, who has died from cancer aged 63, was a teacher, potter and mountain leader. A multi-talented and restless figure, unconventional and suspicious of authority, she was the natural ally of young people. Her energy and imagination inspired those around her.
In her 30 years at Central Foundation girls’ school in Tower Hamlets, east London, teaching art, and design and technology, Siw inspired generations of students to make and do – in activities ranging from cycle training to building canoes.
A rock climber and mountaineer, she established the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme at the school, taking groups of girls camping in north Wales. At 50 she qualified as a mountain leader, and with the British Exploring Society, took teenagers on expeditions to Namibia, Oman, Kashmir and Iceland.
In her mid-50s, she stopped teaching and trained as a potter, producing handmade pieces for use in the home under the name Mountain Woman Pottery. Her work became popular with a small circle of collectors and friends. She had her first exhibition last year, together with the artist Christine Mills, at Plas Brondanw, the former home of the writer and critic Amabel Williams-Ellis, in the beautiful Croesor valley in Snowdonia (Eryri). Her exhibition was inspired by Amabel, who had written in the 1950s about how to live a fulfilled life as a woman beyond the home.
Born in Flint in north Wales, Siw was the daughter of Barbara (nee Sylvine), a social worker, and Geoff Thomas, an architect. The family went on to pursue self-sufficiency on a farm on Anglesey, and Siw went to David Hughes school there. She then moved to London to study sculpture at Saint Martin’s School of Art, then, after graduation in 1982, trained as a teacher.
She and I met in 1982, when I was a student, and we married in 1987. We settled in Islington, north London, in a house that we built together (I am an architect).
Siw went everywhere on a battered bicycle. She liked mending things, could make a beautiful chair out of recycled wood, or a set of tablemats out of meadow grass, keep bees and weave a rug.
Most recently she was working for the charity Global Generation, running workshops for young people in community gardens in King’s Cross and Canada Water. She was also improving her beloved Welsh with the language app Duolingo, and doing the Guardian crossword every morning at breakfast.
She is survived by me and our three children, Cadi, Jac and Wil.