RIP, Claire

Damn, Claire Rayner has died. A wonderful woman. While I never had the privilege to know her personally, I spoke with her many years ago on one of her phone-ins. She was forthright, sensible, and I would have trusted her to the ends of the earth. She will be missed.

And here’s another tribute to her from Roy Greenslade. I did enjoy the quote that he gave of her commenting on a far more powerful, yet by comparison an immeasurably poorer example of a human being than she was:

“I have no language with which to adequately describe Joseph Alois Ratzinger, AKA the Pope. In all my years as a campaigner I have never felt such animus against any individual as I do against this creature. His views are so disgusting, so repellent and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him.”

It also took this piece from Greenslade to cause some pieces to finally fall together in my increasingly addled brain. I simply hadn’t realised that Jay Rayner was the son of Claire. I leave you with his tweet:

My dear old mum, Claire Rayner, died yesterday aged 79. I, like so many others, will miss her terribly.

Amen.