RAYMOND Theodoulou, former chairman and former deputy leader of Gloucestershire Council Council and long-serving county and district councillor, has died aged 83.

He was elected to Gloucestershire County Council in 2001. From 2005, when the Conservatives took control of the Council, he took responsibility for the county finances.

He served on the County Council for twenty years, ultimately becoming deputy leader and then chairman.

When he stood down in 2021 a colleague noted that he had worked ‘quietly, tenaciously’ to further the public interest. ‘His record of long service will be impossible to match.’

In tandem with his responsibilities in Gloucester, Raymond was elected district councillor in 2003, holding the post until the end of his life.

He was also treasurer for St Swithin’s Church Quenington for many years. Whichever hat he wore, Raymond won the respect of his constituents and colleagues for his genial manner and concern for local affairs.

He became a familiar figure throughout the Cotswolds, travelling widely to attend parish, district and county meetings, and happy to talk to constituents at any time.

Raymond Theodoulou was born April 1 1939 in Paddington, the son of Irene Rankin and Andreas Theodoulou, from Cyprus. During the Blitz he narrowly survived a bombing raid on Mornington Crescent.

He was evacuated, first to Bristol and then when Bristol was also bombed he and his mother moved to North Shields to live with his uncles.

After the war he returned to London. For the rest of his life he retained vivid memories of the hardships of wartime Newcastle and of post-war London with its bomb damage and rationing. Raymond won entrance to Sheen Grammar School and from there went up to Oxford where he studied French and German at St Peter’s.

A formative experience came in 1958 when he visited his pen friend in Berlin. Raymond never forgot the family’s stories of the war and its aftermath and came away with a great respect and affection for German music and literature.

To the end of his life he would tell jokes in German and recite Schiller and Hölderlin.

After university, Raymond moved back to London where he worked briefly at the British Tourist Authority.

He then pursued a career in finance which took him to South East Asia, living and working for twenty years in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jakarta.

His work took him to Gabon, New Zealand, the Soviet Union and many more places besides.

He was a great raconteur and delighted in regaling friends and family with stories of his travels, including the occasion when he had to learn Mandarin in order to deliver a speech before a large audience at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

In 1999 Raymond, his wife Elizabeth and their children moved back to the UK and settled in Quenington.

After a brief illness, he died at home on 9th March surrounded by his family.

He was in the place he loved and had served for two decades.

He is survived by his wife, seven children, two step-children and seven grandchildren.