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Sons Michael and Lawrence with one of Rose’s many awards – this one for recognising her as the world’s oldest working artist |
Tributes to the ‘spirit’ of Rose Hacker
Writer, campaigner, sex counsellor, belly dancer: hundreds gather at funeral to remember the New Journal’s ‘oldest columnist in the world’
LEADING a conga mixed with a Turkish belly dance routine at the age of 99 was just one of the many happy memories friends, family and colleagues of Rose Hacker shared at the funeral of the New Journal columnist on Monday.
In a celebration of her life – she passed away last week aged 101 – stories of her zestful nature were swapped with relish, including the impromptu conga routine she led round the Passover table of radio personality and author, Rabbi Lionel Blue.
Speaking to a congregation of mourners numbering more than 300, Rabbi Blue said: “I’m going back a couple of years. Rose had just taken a course in Turkish belly dancing, during which she had everyone else in the class enthralled – the youngsters on the course were very interested in what she did and how she managed it. She came to dinner, told us about the dances she had learned, and ended up leading a Turkish conga round the Passover table.”
Rose was born in 1906 and at the wake, in the Highgate Scientific and Literary Institute in Pond Square, her sons Michael and Lawrence spoke of how their mother had been a clothing designer and a founding member of the Co-operative Correspondence Magazine for Women during the 1930 – a publication established to discuss political and civil rights issues facing women.
Her politics provided a moral guide to her life’s work: she travelled to the Soviet Union with Fabians Sidney and Beatrice Webb. She was also involved in the fight against fascism and worked to ease the economic troubles of the Depression. With her husband Mark she would fill a large laundry basket with food parcels and take a train from Paddington station to south Wales and hand them out to hungry miners.
Her career included work as a marriage guidance counsellor in the 1950s and she was the author of books on topics that included sex and teenagers.
In the 1970s she was elected to serve on the Greater London Council and then became the President of the Progressive League.
In her spare time, as well as writing her regular column for the New Journal, she had been an accomplished sculptor and took up the Chinese keep-fit discipline Tai Chi when she was in her 80s.
Rabbi Blue revealed that Rose’s inquisitive mind meant whenever they met, a lively discussion would follow. He said he had discussed theology and Judaism with Rose, and said how her Humanist views differed from his belief in God, but how they found common ground in the importance of the motivation behind leading a good life. He said: “Rose Hacker did not need a god or an afterlife. Her many, many mitzvahs (good deeds) far out-do the years she was alive.”
And he said she would live on with those people fortunate enough to have met her.
Rabbi Blue added: “If you say to Rose’s spirit come and stay in a little flat in my mind, the voice of Rose will come and influence our attitudes.
“Our duty is to say, ‘come Rose, let your spirit be about us, in us and with us.’”
Rose’s Jewish background – her father, who was Polish, brought her up in the East End – was honoured with her son Michael saying Kaddish for her, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
Among the mourners who packed the Golders Green crematorium was CND vice-president Bruce Kent and a host of comrades from the Labour Party, including Islington MP Jeremy Corbyn.
They were treated to a Shakespearean sonnet, a selection of music including Beethoven and a poem by Auschwitz survivor, the Italian author Primo Levi. |
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