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Rose Hacker remembered
• IT is difficult to think of anyone who has advocated better for older people than Rose.
I first met her some 15 years ago at Tyringham Naturopathic Clinic.
Well into her 80s then she gathered around her a group of what to her were young women and took us onto the lawn and instructed us in the art of tai chi.
I was, like many others, attracted to this indomitable woman and feel privileged to have been counted as a friend.
I quickly realised that I had met someone of great breadth and depth of character and enormous warmth.
It is very humbling to see how much she has achieved in her life and continued to achieve right up to the end – imagine starting a career as a columnist at 100.
In the short time I knew her I learnt something new about her each time we met.
Meeting Rose revolutionised my attitude toward ageing.
In her 90s she was still involved with a women’s support group in Camden.
At that time I was working in adult education and running courses for residential care workers on working positively with older people.
I invited Rose to be a guest speaker to provide a “role model of positive ageing” as the jargon goes.
Rose’s attitude towards ageing – at that time positively revolutionary – visibly impacted on a group of largely institutionalised care workers and on me.
I was at the time coming towards the end of a mediocre career and planning early retirement.
Under Rose’s inspiration, retirement suddenly changed from a winding down of life to a new beginning – I started a new career in my mid-50s and have never looked back.
At 55 I estimated I had another 25 active years ahead of me and as each year passed and Rose was still actively involved, I added another year to my future.
Now at 65 I am still thinking of another 25 years – but why not 35?
Aged 101, Rose addressed the annual meeting of Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents at the City of London Guildhall on maintaining independence in old age.
Her words inspired us all: “I am not a tick in a box, I am a person.”
She found it humiliating that the degeneration of her physical body hindered/ aggravated her exceptional mind but her spirit and her achievement shone through. She has been incredibly inspirational to me and to
many others.
She will be much missed.
Irene Kohler
Director of Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents,
Dean Street, W1
Brilliant writing
• ROSE Hacker was a brilliant journalist.
She was able to bear in her writings the extensive knowledge and experience of her work and commitment for the public, in particular the needy and disabled.
She was an astonishing campaigner. Above all her targets were the councils and the public bodies (particularly if they were unaccountable) together with the government. She was not unfair to individual staff members but she was very quick to sniff out the lazy, the indifferent and the faulty decision-makers.
I recall one rally in the 1960s when she gave out commands to the rest of us in her sergeant-major fashion, and we did what we were told.
She spoke and motivated large crowds, not to weaken but to show strength.
There were many sides of her and one in later years was the correct lady. If a meeting concluded around noon at her residence, she would say most charmingly and graciously;
“Will you have a sherry before you go?”
She enjoyed Jewish gossip, yet was not actually involved in “synagogue life”. She spoke out against the Holocaust and the attempted destruction of Jewish life.
Forget that she was 101 when she died, the campaigns and causes she advanced kept her thoughts and language vivid and always alert.
We should be grateful to the New Journal for giving Rose the space and opportunity to tell us how we might take advantage if we live to advanced years. Rose Hacker knew the secret of a good life and expressed it to a wide public every week.
Eric Moonman
N7
Courteous opponent
• I WAS sorry to read of the death of Rose Hacker at the age of 101.
Rose was my Labour opponent when I contested the old St Pancras North constituency in the GLC elections in April 1973.
I was a 23-year-old student at the North London Polytechnic in Kentish Town and Rose was already 67 years old. Rose, not unexpectedly, won the contest by more than 4,000 votes and joined the new Labour majority on the GLC.
Although we fundamentally disagreed on virtually every issue, with exception of the proposed inner-ring motorway, she was always courteous and without personal rancour. Rose retired at the following election and was replaced by Ann Sofer.
Nicholas Bennett
(Conservative MP for Pembroke 1987-92)
Bromley
So much good sense
• WHAT a great shame that Rose Hacker is no longer with us.
Her words made so much sense.
If only there had been more like her in the Labour government this past 10 years as Rose clearly believed in “fairness for all”.
I don’t think the current crop of Labour politicians know the meaning of the phrase.
June Gibson
Chandos Way, NW11
A real insight
• BERNARD Miller got it just right in his tribute to Rose Hacker: “She showed that irrespective of age and health, if people really care enough they can take on new challenges and succeed.”
Rose certainly did that – her column for the CNJ was an insight into a life of experience and her understanding of the human condition – she pulled no punches and was never cowed – wisdom shone through every line. Thanks, too, to Bernard Miller for being the conduit and the CNJ for letting her columns grace its pages – Rose will be deeply missed.
Jean Pestell
Address supplied
Friend and comrade
• MAUREN and I are very, very sad to hear of the passing of Rose Hacker at 101.
She was a wonderful worker for the community in St Pancras and later Camden, founding the Mark and Rose Hacker Mental Health drop-in in Kentish Town with her late husband.
She was a councillor on the former Greater London Council for some years representing Camden; she was an assiduous writer of numerous books; and, of course, the oldest writer of articles at 101 writing with her marvellous humour and understanding of life and people for your paper.
She practised tai chi until a very late age and I had pleasure in practising tai chi with her in her garden at her flat in Millfield Lane on Sundays.
She was someone who had seen the world and its troubles and was determined to fight to change this lousy world even into her very old age.
She will be missed by all of her friends and her family to whom we send our sincere condolences – our thoughts are with you.
Rest in peace, dear Rose, comrade and friend.
CLLR Roger Robinson
Labour, St Pancras &
Somers Town Ward
A sad loss to all of us
• ALL at Age Concern Camden are deeply saddened at the death of the CNJ columnist Rose Hacker.
At 101 she was a true inspiration to old and young alike, challenging people’s assumptions about older age.
She showed a deep understanding of social issues in her witty, thoughtful and intelligent column.
I knew Rose for many years, and remember her hard work for the GLC and for Camden’s voluntary sector.
I have a memory of Rose at every Hiroshima Day each August at Tavistock Square in Bloomsbury. Rose would be there in a summer dress and hat, sitting with Michael Foot, waiting her turn to speak and greeting us all with a smile.
A real loss to her family, to all in Camden and to the readers of the CNJ whose pages she graced.
Barbara Hughes MBE
Chair, Age Concern Camden
St Chad’s Street, WC1
Publish the columns
• WITH the death of Rose Hacker your paper and your readers have lost one of their brightest stars. We hope that you will safeguard her extraordinary and much needed vision by publishing a collection of her columns in book form.
LIZ FRASER, WC1
Powerful comment
• I READ with much sadness about the death of Rose Hacker.
Her last article was so powerful.
It said more about what’s really going on in our country – more so than hundreds of news bulletins. She will be greatly missed.
Christopher Huff
address supplied
What a gem
• I’M saddened I didn’t hear of Rose Hacker until her death was announced.
What a gem. Please, please, publish and publicise her writing so that we can appreciate the depth of her 101 years of clear sight in a murky world.
Sincere condolences to all who knew her,
S Carr, Dublin
Imagine
Imagine Rose Dancing* by Kim Morrissey
Imagine Rose dancing
white lace at her throat
dark dress falling shoulders
to floor
the lights catching stage dust
the slow curve of thin wrists
suspended
Rose dancing,
still turning heads
each breath that she takes
lemon-sweet
imagine Rose dancing
to one-hundred-and-one
imagine Rose dancing
and dance!
*inspired by Rose Hacker’s dance performance at The Place, Bloomsbury, February 24, 2007.
Rare and special person
• THE first day I met Rose Hacker I was in awe.
Rose had agreed to be interviewed by me, a
23-year-old student, regarding the CCC, a group of women that she had belonged to for over 50 years.
She spoke candidly to me for an hour and a half and then charmingly told me that she had to leave to attend a party.
It was 1:30 on a Wednesday afternoon and she was 97 years old.
For the next four-and- a-half years Rose kindly opened up her home and heart to me and shared the stories of her life.
I felt privileged to get to know such a rare and special person.
Rose was insightful, charismatic, open- minded and intimidatingly well read and informed.
She had an irrepressible youthfulness which led her to constantly seek out new friends to learn from and grow with.
Rose was also an absolute lady.
She always took care of those around her and made her endless stream of visitors feel welcome.
Rose Hacker was a woman without prejudice, someone who truly valued the human spirit and worked toward a better and more loving world.
She will be greatly missed.
Jenna Bailey
Author of Can Any Mother Help Me?
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