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Peggy Jay in 1965, when chairwoman of the GLC parks committee |
Peggy Jay, formidable campaigner and vigilant defender of the Heath
DAME Peggy Jay, who died on Monday aged 94, will be remembered for her tireless work for Hampstead and its people.
But her influence stretched far beyond the area she called home for almost 90 years, and the list of her achievements is as long as her resourceful life.
When she became chairwoman of the Heath and Hampstead Society in 1968, she already had decades of service behind her on London County Council and the Greater London Council. She was a magistrate for 20 years and also had a spell on the Parole Board.
She was active on numerous health bodies, including Camden Community Health Council, and as chairwoman of Friern Hospital in New Southgate. Her work was partly responsible for new approaches to caring for disabled young people and for the mentally ill, who were often treated in hospitals that had changed little since Victorian times.
Her political interests focused on children and families. On County Hall’s education committee she campaigned to update London’s Victorian school buildings.
Peggy was born in Manchester, and spent her early life in Lancashire before her family moved to London.
Her childhood was punctuated by tragedy. Her parents lost a baby boy, Peter, in 1914 and she also lost uncles in the First World War. It made her aware of the importance of family and this in turn shaped her political interests.
She studied at Somerville College, Oxford, and married her childhood love, Douglas Jay, at Hampstead Parish Church in September 1930. The guests arrived at the family home in Well Walk for the reception – to discover the newlyweds had caught a train to Portofino in Italy, leaving friends and relatives to toast them in their absence. The couple settled in Paddington, where they joined the Labour Party.
In 1934, politician Herbert Morrison suggested she join London County Council’s school care committee to learn more about the situation working-class families found themselves in during the Depression. It set her off on a lifelong career of voluntary work.
In 1937, she became a Labour candidate for the LCC, and also gave birth to her first son, Peter, who in later life was to become an ambassador to the United States and play a pivotal role in setting up TV-AM, the breakfast station.
In the spring of 1938, Peggy won an LCC by-election in Hackney. It was a highly charged atmosphere, with her campaign set against the backdrop of growing political extremism. She became the youngest member ever elected to County Hall.
She moved from Frognal to Well Walk in 1939, and her son Martin was born, followed by twins Catherine and Helen in 1945.
She gave up representing Hackney in 1949 to spend more time with her family. But with her husband then Labour MP for Battersea, she was invited to take on LCC’s north Battersea seat in 1952. She stayed in the post for 15 years, winning the seat again in 1964 when the LCC was replaced by the Greater London Council.
In the early 1980s factional in-fighting prompted her to leave the Labour Party for the SDP. She rejoined Labour a year before her death, saying it was wonderful to return to “her” party.
She fought – unsuccessfully – to prevent the Royal Free Hospital moving from King’s Cross to Hampstead in the 1970s. It was not nimbyism, although she did believe the hospital would affect South End Green’s quiet streets. She thought the poorer part of the borough needed a world-class hospital on its doorstep to deal with health inequalities.
She campaigned to save Burgh House for the public after Camden Council tried to sell it, and succeeded for years in keeping McDonald’s out of Hampstead High Street.
She was determined to keep Hampstead green, running from her home in Well Walk in her dressing gown to stop chainsaws removing a plane tree in the garden of flats in New End.
Her love of Hampstead Heath left an important legacy. With the Heath and Hampstead Society, she ensured it was well managed and kept a vigilant watch on any developments on the fringes that threatened to spoil views.
Her funeral is to take place at 1pm on Monday at Hampstead Parish Church, in Church Row. |
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