A rose by name....

Clearly it is the week to celebrate women of great substance, albeit with a little tear in our eye. I am sad to report the passing of the magnificent Rose Hacker. At the same time, I am metaphorically whooping with joy at the achievements of a woman who fought as hard as she bloody well could to make sure she left this world just a little bit better than the one she found.

Teresa, my trusty transcriber alerted me to the whirlwind that is Rose Hacker.

'She's the world's oldest journalist. She wrote books about sex for young people in the sixties. Why don't you see if she'll talk to you about virginity loss and sex?'

She did, and one hot afternoon last summer I found myself sitting in the presence of a genuine VIP. All one-hundred-and-one years of her. You can't underestimate the importance of people like Rose Hacker. She was born in 1906 and she helped to set up what we now know as 'Relate' but was then known as ‘The Marriage Guidance Council’. This earns her the slightly saucier title of 'World's oldest sex therapist'. But jest not. It is relatively easy for the likes of me to get people to talk about their sex lives but it wasn't for Rose back then. This is a woman who constantly stuck her head out on the parapet at a time when people simply did not talk about their sexual lives. This wasn’t the only world in which she moved.

A peace activist, a politician, an artist and the author of the book ‘Telling the Teenagers’, a guide published in 1966 to help parents talk to their children about sex, Rose Hacker never let a day go by without doing something extraordinary.

In 2007, a local newspaper reporter saw her give a speech at the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima in Tavistock Square. He was impressed. He offered her the chance to write a fortnightly column for the Camden New Journal. Another new career was born.

Last year, she said this to Guardian journalist Mildred Amadiegwu: ‘It would be so easy for me to sit in this chair, listen to music and do nothing,’ she says. ‘I can understand people my age who just give up.’ So why doesn't she? ‘Because of the state of the world. I think it's very important that people should listen to people like me - and we're being totally ignored.’ Does that make her angry? ‘Yes. But I'm furious about everything.’

Her last column for the Camden New Journal was published on January 31st 2008. She died four days later on February 4.

Making a difference right to the end.

I only had the pleasure of Rose Hacker’s company once but I shall replay it many times in my imagination.

Comments

[DJ Kirkby]

Ah very sad to hear of this amazing woman's end to this life. I read that last article on her at the time it was published and admired her greatly.