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BBC News
2 days ago
- General
- BBC News
How Oswestry shaped Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley
Dame Stephanie Shirley, 91, who died on 9 August, is remembered by thousands for her pioneering work in the field of technology and for women's rights in the 1950s and founded the software company Freelance Programmers, which shook up the tech industry by almost exclusively hiring a child, she was separated from her parents to flee the Nazis in World War Two, settling with a foster family in the Sutton Coldfield in 1939, before later moving to Oswestry. It was at school in the Shropshire town it was discovered she had an aptitude for mathematics, which ultimately let her to becoming a tech pioneer. She was born Vera Buchthal in the German city of Dortmund in 1933, and came to Britain as part of the Kindertransport - a British rescue effort in the months preceding World War Two that brought 10,000 children to the UK."I was a very traumatised child, I was five years old when I was put on a train in Vienna and sent off, without my parents, with my older sister to foster parents in the Midlands," she told BBC Radio Shropshire in 2024. She then moved to Oswestry, which Dame Stephanie said was very welcoming to immigrants."I think its quite significant that Oswestry as a market town, and as a border town - its geographically in Wales, politically in Shropshire - but it should be welcoming of immigrants. It was... certainly in my day when we were living there," she said."I describe it as a town of sanctuary."My childhood was in the Midlands... I had six wonderful years of peace in Oswestry and I feel very affectionate about Oswestry."But it was not just the atmosphere that shaped her childhood. 'Maths lessons made my career' She attended what was then Oswestry Girls' High School, a boarding school in the town, but maths was limited there - in fact, it was not taught to girls at her talent for the subject was recognised and she was offered maths lessons at the boys school in the same town."I was the first girl to attend boys school to learn mathematics, and it was a rather unpleasant experience, really, with all the boys cat-calling and whistling as I turned up for my lessons," she told the BBC last year."But I did get the tuition I wanted, and I bless the people that had the sufficient foresight to say: 'Well, this child is gifted in mathematics... and we need to provide her with tuition'." Dame Stephanie said that decision "made her career". When she grew up, she adopted the name "Steve" to help her in a male-dominated tech was the name Jools Payne, who met her at Oswestry Literature Festival in 2015 when Stephanie was there to promote her memoir, knew her Payne established the group Oswestry Welcomes Refugees."She was fantastically successful but she was such a kind person," she said."She had such humanity and I think I will probably remember her most for the kindness that I saw her show on the three or four occasions that I spent time with her."Her connection to Oswestry was immortalised with the installation of a blue plaque, facilitated by the town council, on The Broadwalk next to St Oswald's Church in August 2021. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
BBC News
3 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley, technology pioneer, dies aged 91
Visionary tech pioneer and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley has died at the age of boundary-breaking entrepreneur arrived in London at the age of five, just weeks before the outbreak of World War Two, and went on to become a computer industry and women's rights pioneer in the 1950s and founded the software company Freelance Programmers in 1962, which shook up the tech industry by almost exclusively hiring women, and in later life donated almost £70m to help those with autism and to IT was very smart and truly formidable, even adopting the name "Steve" to help her in a male-dominated tech died on 9 August, her family said in an Instagram post on Monday. To many women in tech, myself included, Dame Stephanie was inspirational. Her pioneering and controversial decision to hire exclusively women coders and data inputters, working from home, was way ahead of its time and changed many had a difficult life, and it made her tough. She was stoic about grief and showed - publicly at least - extraordinary strength in the face of a number of traumatic experiences. She was from a generation whose childhoods were shaped by the atrocities of World War Vera Buchthal in the German city of Dortmund in 1933, Dame Stephanie's Jewish father was a had hoped that being in a position of power would protect his family, but as the Nazi government increased its persecution of German Jews, they fled to the Austrian capital was one of thousands of Jewish children fleeing the Nazis and came to Britain as part of the Kindertransport - a British rescue effort in the months preceding World War 2 which brought 10,000 children to the UK - where she was brought up by loving foster parents. Determined not to be defined by her traumatic childhood, Dame Stephanie founded a company designed to provide jobs for women with starting out as a scientific civil servant, in 1962 she founded software company Freelance Programmers - later known as FI Group, later still Xansa - something which was almost unheard of for a woman to do in the company changed the landscape for women working in technology by offering flexible working the first 300 staff, 297 were success of the company left Dame Stephanie with a fortune of about £150m, most of which she donated to good late son Giles was autistic and she was an early member of the National Autistic Society, with her charity the Shirley Foundation funding many projects particularly related to founded Autism at Kingwood, a service which now supports autistic adults in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and also helped set up Prior's Court - a school for autistic young people in Thatcham, Berkshire. The last time I saw her, I introduced her at an event on stage. She was frail, but as always extremely glamorous and totally captivating. She said she knew she was coming to the end of her life and she reflected candidly on what she felt she had learned. She had a strong moral compass and believed in using her wealth for good. And she never stopped standing up to sexism. She spent her whole life refusing to conform to society's many gender stereotypes and cliché time has passed since Dame Stephanie started signing letters as Steve in order to get the attention of the male business contacts she was messaging. But Tech continues to be a male dominated industry and women still have to shout loud to be heard. Steve was one of the first, and she shouted the loudest. Additional reporting by Charlotte Edwards Sign up for our Tech Decoded newsletter to follow the world's top tech stories and trends. Outside the UK? Sign up here.
Times
04-06-2025
- Business
- Times
Stephanie Shirley at 91: ‘I think I've got a couple more big trips left in me'
Dame Stephanie Shirley, 91, is a tech pioneer and philanthropist who came to Britain on the Kindertransport in 1939. She built a £3 billion business, Freelance Programmers (later renamed F International), and 70 of her staff became millionaires due to its shared ownership structure. Since retiring in 1993 she has donated more than £70 million to charity. She was made a dame in 2000 and became one of the prestigious few members of the Order of Companions of Honour in 2017. I suppose the most significant trip I've ever taken was the two-and-a-half day rail and boat journey on the Kindertransport. In 1939, my older sister, Renate, and I travelled from Vienna to London alongside a thousand other tearful Jewish children, with our train tickets around our necks. My German Jewish father lost his job as a judge after Hitler took power, so we moved from Dortmund to Austria but had to get out fast after the Anschluss [the Nazi takeover of Austria]. So that trip to England, my first real travel experience, made a huge difference to my life. On arrival in England I was fostered by a wonderful couple in Sutton Coldfield in the West Midlands, Guy and Ruby Smith, whom I called Uncle and Auntie. I spent the next few years with them. Yes, it was wartime, but we had a lovely bucket-and-spade-holiday in Blackpool when I was aged six. Some of my happiest holiday memories are of going camping in a punt on the Upper Thames with my late husband, Derek [who died in 2021, aged 97], during our courting days. We'd hire it for the weekend and use a great big pole to go down the Thames, stopping off along the route in places such as Maidenhead and Marlow. Each night we would pull up a canvas structure to give us privacy, sleeping with blankets over us in the punt. But we were so close to the water that I'd often wake up to see a water rat squinting at me. After marrying in 1959 we honeymooned at a rather swanky hotel, Great Fosters in Egham, Surrey, staying in a room with a four-poster bed. But we had to check out earlier than we'd planned to because we were short of money. Following the birth of our only son, Giles, we had a wonderful summer holiday in Tenby, in Wales, when he was little. But he was profoundly disabled and that made travelling with him difficult from the age of two or three [Giles died aged 35]. A day out was a major achievement — and the one holiday Derek and I took without him, a cruise around the Canary Islands, was a disaster because he was so upset at being left in the hands of carers. We never did that again. As my business grew bigger and more successful in the 1970s and 1980s and we opened subsidiaries overseas, I began to go on work trips to places like Amsterdam (such a beautiful city), and Lucerne in Switzerland, as well as further afield. Given Giles's health issues, and the fact that Derek was not a particularly keen overseas traveller, I started tacking mini-holidays on to those work trips. • 16 of the best hotels in Vienna At one point in the 1980s I was travelling to San Francisco four times a year for board meetings, though I'd fly out a day or two early so I could visit an art gallery and dine out. I had a favourite business class seat on the plane, as well as a favourite room — 215, a corner room with windows on two sides — at the Marriott on Union Square, which became a home from home. The holidays that were most memorable were the most unexpected. For instance, walking around the awe-inspiring Uluru in central Australia, snorkelling off the Great Barrier Reef (tourism was much less developed there when I first visited) and going on a safari in Zimbabwe. Those experiences were just so different to my everyday life. • Best hotels in San Francisco Have I been back to Germany and Austria? Being a judge and a German-speaker, my father — by then in the US Army — was called upon to assist the Allied authorities at the Nuremberg trials. So I visited him there in 1946, and got to see a few of the Nazi defendants in the dock, though it wasn't exactly a holiday. Both my birth parents thankfully survived the Second World War but I never really bonded with them again, so I stayed in England. I've also since returned to Vienna a couple of times, on work and leisure trips, and on one trip saw my old childhood home. It's quite a romantic city, particularly if you love classical music as I do (there's often music in the air), though I obviously felt mixed emotions my first time back there. Over the past half-dozen years I've used a buggy service to cover long distances in airports, and been joined by my long-time personal assistant, Lynn, a wonderful companion, on my travels. We've visited everywhere. In Edinburgh's airport departure lounge I got talking to the comedian Eddie Izzard, who was wearing a dress, on our return flight to Heathrow. He was great fun and we struck up quite a rapport. When I was younger, and even during middle age, I was never really conscious of getting jet lag, but it creeps up on you as you get older. These days I need to remember my medications when I travel too. I think I've got a couple more big trips left in me, however, and would love to revisit Japan because the only part I've seen is Tokyo. Just so long as I have a companion to keep me company. Let It Go by Dame Stephanie Shirley & Richard Askwith (Penguin £10.99). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members In our weekly My Hols interview, famous faces — from the worlds of film, sport, politics, and more — share their travel stories from childhood to the present day. Read more My Hols interviews here.
