More about Gary
BIPC ENTREPRENEUR IN RESIDENCE
Back in January 2015, I started my pro bono Entrepreneur in Residence Business Clinic at Liverpool's Central Library, dedicated to helping our business community thrive.
Whether you are a pre-start, a new start, a growing business, or a brave entrepreneur with an initial idea to explore, these sessions offer guidance that is completely:
- Volunteer-led
- Free of charge
- Confidential
- Non-judgmental
- Impartial
Our core mission has always been to #payitforward. Thanks to the dedication of over 70 incredible volunteers and business ecosystem stakeholders, we have had the privilege of supporting thousands of individuals on their entrepreneurial journeys.
We proudly deliver 10 clinics every month without any external funding. This is only possible thanks to the incredible generosity, time, and expertise of our volunteers.
A massive thank you to our amazing hosts, BIPC Liverpool at Central Library, for their continued partnership and vital support.
Let's connect and continue building together.
PLEASE NOTE: These sessions are designed to be face to face only, on our published days (eg. Thursday afternoons, 1 to 4, at Liverpool Central Library's BIPC), for up to 30 minutes at one of our 3 Liverpool City Region locations. Visitors are welcome to return for further advice. Sadly, due to the volunteer nature of these sessions it is highly unlikely that we will have the capacity to offer you pro bono guidance over the phone or by email or via social media.
Further details about my volunteer led sessions, plus Liverpool's outstanding BIPC and their services can be found at https://liverpool.gov.uk/libraries/business-services/.
DISCLAIMER: All information provided is presented in good faith. No warranty or endorsement is given or responsibility accepted regarding the standing of any individual, firm, company, or organisation. It is crucial that individuals conduct their own due diligence if they decide to engage in financial transactions with others and before transferring funds.
SILENT VICTIMS: PART ONE
254 pages | 5” × 8” | Standard Paperback
Behind every medical scandal are lives that history remembers. But there are also those it forgets. Margaret “Madge” Marjorie Millar was one of them.
Silent Victims: Part 1 tells the deeply personal story of a mother whose life became entangled in the devastating legacy of Thalidomide — and of the emotional consequences that continued long after the drug itself disappeared from prescription.
Drawing upon meticulously transcribed medical case notes and deeply personal reflections, Madge’s son, Alderman Gary Millar MBE, pieces together the story of a woman struggling through circumstances few around her could fully understand.
Within the clinical language of medical records emerges something profoundly human: a wife, a mother and a woman attempting to cope with trauma, guilt, fear and an uncertain future while raising a family permanently touched by one of the greatest medical tragedies of the twentieth century.
But this is more than one woman’s story.
It asks us to look beyond the recognised victims of Thalidomide and consider the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters whose lives were also changed — people whose suffering was rarely counted, recorded or acknowledged.
At once intensely personal and grounded in the surviving documentary record, Silent Victims: Part 1 gives Madge back something that medical notes alone could never capture: her humanity, her story and her voice.
Some victims were visible. Others suffered in silence.
This is Madge’s story.
Availability
The book can be purchased directly from the Writing on the Wall Shop
SILENT VICTIMS: PART TWO
458 pages | 5” × 8” | Standard Paperback
Thalidomide changed Leslie Millar’s life before he had even taken his first breath. But its consequences did not end with him. They rippled through an entire family for more than sixty years.
In this powerful sequel to Silent Victims: Part 1, which revealed the devastating impact of Thalidomide on his mother, Margaret, Alderman Gary Millar MBE turns to the wider story of a family forced to live in the long shadow of one of the greatest medical tragedies of the twentieth century.
At its heart is Leslie Millar — a Thalidomide survivor who spent his life navigating a world too often unwilling to understand, accept or include him.
Through family photographs, personal memories, previously untold stories and painstaking research, Gary reconstructs Leslie’s remarkable life while uncovering a much bigger story: what happens to a family when the consequences of a medical disaster do not disappear, but pass silently from one decade to the next?
This is not simply Leslie’s story.
It is the story of parents carrying guilt and grief. Of brothers and sisters growing up alongside trauma. Of discrimination, lost opportunities and battles for dignity. But it is also a story filled with humour, determination, love and extraordinary resilience.
Silent Victims: Part 2 exposes the hidden human cost of Thalidomide — a cost measured not only in physical disability, but in the emotional scars carried by entire families.
Raw, intimate and ultimately hopeful, this book gives a voice to those whose suffering was rarely recorded, whose stories were too easily overlooked, and whose lives deserve to be remembered.
They were the silent victims. This is their story.
Availability
You can read more about the book's background and order a copy directly via the Writing on the Wall Shop at https://writingonthewall.org.uk/shop/silent-victims-part-2/
