My wife, Anne Gee, who has died aged 79, was a 17-year-old bride when in 1948 we travelled to Uganda together. I was a new recruit in the colonial service and Anne was allowed to go with me on the condition that she could find somewhere to stay, since there was limited married accommodation available.
Fortunately, she found a place with missionaries looking after people with leprosy. She had left behind a promising singing career, having won a national competition aged 16, but nevertheless became an enthusiastic amateur soloist in Uganda of song recitals, opera and oratorio, while at the same time raising a family there. We returned home to England after 17 years and Anne joined the opera course at the Guildhall School of Music in London. Responding to Asa Briggs's enthusiasm for mature students at Sussex University, she enrolled for and obtained a music degree.
She travelled with me to Fiji and Papua New Guinea. She maintained her infectious enthusiasm for music and, in Papua New Guinea, carried out three years of fieldwork on Melanesian music, researching conch-shell bands used for playing church music, and obtained her master's degree. She also formed and conducted a choir there consisting almost entirely of indigenous people. One of their productions was a version of Acis and Galatea sung to Handel's music in pidgin English.
In Sussex, she began to teach others to sing, especially those who were unaware that they could actually sing. She was a pioneer of this approach to teaching and encouraging amateur choirs, which she called "singing for those who can't". Latterly she founded and conducted a choir in East Anglia whose concerts continue to raise funds for good causes.
Anne was active in women's rights wherever she went. In Uganda, she presided over the Uganda Council of Women after independence and helped local women to draft legislation. In Papua New Guinea, she marched to protest over local issues affecting women's rights. She cared about family, the poor, and gender and racial equality, and always carried in her handbag a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Anne is survived by me and our sons, Nathaniel and Simon, and our daughter, Sarah.
Lauren German Cindy Crawford Mariah OBrien Uma Thurman Alice Dodd
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