For nine decades Rose Hacker was proud to have been born in 1906, the same year as the Labour Party.  For most of her last eleven years, she was distressed by the way their paths had diverged under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.  

Rose’s progressive, proto-feminist father always encouraged her and other women to demand equal rights and treatment, unlike her more conventional mother who would have liked her to marry well and not be politically involved.  Her eventual marriage to accountant Mark Hacker was extremely happy and thrived on his support for her in all her social and political endeavours.  

An early determination to find out and share the ‘facts of life’ ultimately led to pioneering work in marriage guidance, children’s sex education – she wrote Britain’s first popular book on sex and relationships for young people and it sold a quarter of a million copies in the 1950s – and on to work as a sex therapist.

Her horror at the sight of wounded soldiers returning from World War I triggered a lifelong commitment to peace and a determination to fight militarism.  This brought her to a new career at the age of 100 as a political columnist, writing fortnightly for the Camden New Journal group.  She continued to speak, write and protest against all wars and especially nuclear weapons right up to the time of her death, just two weeks before her 102nd birthday.  Having opposed two world wars, she could never be reconciled to New Labour’s involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Over half a century of commitment to progressive education intensified when she was elected to the Greater London Council in the 1970s.  She was thrilled to be involved in programmes of theatre for schools, music in schools, and arts education. She helped establish London’s first city farms.  She was part of the process of rediscovery and restoration of London’s and Britain’s canals.  Active involvement in mental health – she helped set up Mind, was on the board of the Halliwick Mental Hospital, and worked at grass roots levels with all sorts of mental health groups – continued throughout her life.

Rose was proud to have been largely self-taught – she loved the word autodidact. She had not been to university (claiming she had failed important university entrance exams because her attention was distracted by a disarmingly handsome young man) although she did study art, design, French and German at the Regents Street Polytechnic before joining her father working in his fashion house at Oxford Circus.  

It was there that she first saw the undernourished hunger marchers from Wales and the Midlands whose deplorable treatment by industrialists and mine-owners inspired her to become a committed socialist, a commitment that never left her.  She delighted in the work done by Labour councils in building high quality housing, providing good schools, planning complete communities, and creating a national health service which improved public health and removed the financial fear previously associated with illness.

A century of political and social observation and activism gave her a remarkably astute perception and understanding of the world and its workings.  She predicted the credit crunch and its consequences nearly two years before the story broke.

And on top of all this, Rose found time to write articles, books, poetry, to paint and sculpt – one of her small pieces was displayed in the British Museum and she received an award as Britain’s oldest working artist at the age of 98. She loved to attend concerts and opera several times a month. She adored all kinds of dancing including belly dancing and even made a public dance performance debut the week before her 101st birthday. She enjoyed remaining in contact with family and old friends as well as making several new friends every week.  Loss of hearing, of sight and potentially of dignity that she associated with increasing frailty did not cramp her style.  She decided that however tough things might become, it was all worth it as long as she was enjoying herself and speaking out for what she believed in.