Purple Poets
guest poet and presenter: Rose Hacker
National Poetry Day 2006

Rose Hacker
presented the Norah Platt Prize

October 5th 2006
at the London Time Banking
National Poetry Day Celebrations
Diorama Gallery 4 (D4)
(across from Warren Street Station)
with the London Time Bank Poets

Rose Hacker was born on March 3, 1906. Sadly , for everyone who knew and loved her, Rose died February 4th, 2008.

Rose Hacker began a new career as a journalist for the Camden New Journal at the age of 100. The daughter of a Polish immigrant who became a London tailor, she was born the same year as Beckett and Betjeman and the Labour party got its name. By the 1940s she had trained as a clothes designer, married, had two sons, been a researcher for Mass Observation and become Britain's first sex therapist. A socialist, she has put in decades of work with bodies ranging from the Inner London Education Authority to Counsel and Care, a charity giving advice to older people and their relatives.

Widowed at 76, Rose assumed that was that. "I thought I'd be dead in a year or two - 76 was considered old in those days." She sold their house, bought a flat, and stayed there 20 years, before accepting, at 96, that she couldn't live alone. She has had two brushes with cancer, and regretfully gave up art in 2005 when she lost her eyesight in one eye.

FURTHER ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE PURPLE POETS:

Most recently, she appeared in an M.A. dance recital, with three other dancers, at The Place Theatre, Bloomsbury, February 2006, to which she invited Kim, who was also honoured to have Rose at the ATLAS 02 launch,  Nehru Centre May 2007 (poem and review below).

The Purple Poets were delighted to welcome Rose) and Jill Fraser, former Mayor of Camden) as their special guests of honour at the West Euston Third Age Project's 10th Anniversary Celebrations on June 9th 2007.



GUARDIAN REVIEW (Nicholas Wroe, 2007)


Pomp and Sex Therapy
The Guardian Diary,
published Saturday August 11 2007

The typical book launch involves a huddle of people milling about a room with, perhaps, a few gushing words from the editor and/or some self-deprecatory ones from the author. No such laxity at the Nehru Centre, at the Indian High Commission in Mayfair, for the launch of the literary "bookzine" Atlas, an annual production. First, the poet and Atlas editor Sudeep Sen took part in lighting candles on the "auspicious lamp", before speeches and songs in praise of an exhibition of photography and a three-part performance of Sufi dance. Then attention was turned to Atlas vol 2, which, although a Canadian literature special, includes in its 400 pages an interview with Salman Rushdie, prose from Tim Parks and poetry from Mimi Khalvati. The guest of honour, Peter Porter, produced a copy of the book wrapped in gold paper and tied in a red ribbon. He solemnly ripped it open and formally declared Atlas vol 2 launched.

An alarming rumour began to circulate that, at the launch of vol 1, 32 poets read from their work. But this time a shorter cast list was given just two minutes each. Khalvati still found time to praise a journal that gives space to longer poems, while Daljit Nagra provided a neat Anglo-Indian link. George Szirtes and Daniel Weissbort - neither of whom are in the new book - were good value, but perhaps the most heartfelt applause was for the British-based Canadian writer Kim Morrissey. She had drawn attention to 101-year-old Rose Hacker in the audience, a pioneering sex therapist in the 1930s (and still a feisty columnist for the Camden New Journal) who inspired Morrissey earlier this year to write the poem "Imagine Rose Dancing".

SOURCE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/aug/11/featuresreviews.guardianreview22

INTERVIEW WITH ROSE HACKER (July 2007): Rose Hacker began her fortnightly column for London's Camden New Journal last year, when she was 100. She was a designer for her father's fashion business and later did voluntary work for the Marriage Guidance Council. Her 1960 book for teenagers, The Opposite Sex, sold 250,000 copies, and she wrote her autobiography at 90

"Miss Hilliard taught me poems that I still remember. Now I try and try to learn a poem, but it won't stick. She also taught me to keep a " commonplace" book of quotations. On my 100th birthday, I had a book printed of the quotations that I'd collected over the years. She gave me a real love of poetry; teachers can have such a powerful effect.

I was always reading, and my parents put me on my honour not to turn on the light and read after 10pm. One night, there was bright moonlight, so I was reading a book on the window ledge. My parents came back and saw me. I nearly fell out of the window. I said, "But I didn't have the light on!".

I never did any work but I always got prizes. I suppose I was one of the bright kids who picked things up. My mother asked Miss Spencer-Smith not to give me any more books as prizes, so she gave me a purple sewing-box. I wanted to throw it at her.

Another time, I was caught reading a book under the desk, so at assembly, the headmistress announced: "Nobody is to lend Rosie any book because she doesn't know the proper time to read." You never forget these things."

Passed/Failed: An education in the life of Rose Hacker, 101-year-old columnist
'I'm completely uneducated'
Interview by Jonathan Sale
The Independent, Thursday, 19 July 2007
SOURCE:
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/getting-job/passedfailed-an-education-in-the-life-of-rose-hacker-101yearold-columnist-457757.html
.

Books by Rose Hacker

Abraham's Daughter
by Rose Hacker
(Paperback) 137 pages
by Rose Hacker
Publisher: Deptford Forum Publishing (1996)
ISBN-10: 1898536260
ISBN-13: 978-1898536260




Telling the Teenagers, a Guide for Parents, Teachers and Youth Leaders
(also reprinted as 'The Opposite Sex'  in paperback, by Pan books etc.)
by Rose Hacker
Publisher: Published by Andre Deutsch Ltd., 105 Great Russell Street, London 1957, reprint 1960, second edition 1961.  Reprinted Edition
Published by Andre Deutsch Ltd., 105 Great Russell Street, London 1961 Reprinted Edition.Hard back 8vo, 213 pp


You and your Daughter
by Rose Hacker
Four Square Book. 1964 158pp paperback



RESEARCH

Rose (a.k.a. 'Elektra' ) was a member of the writing circle descrribed in Jenna Bailey's Can Any Mother Help Me?  As well as compiling her own background notes, she deposited the archives of the group in a university library, which made the book possible.
Can Any Mother Help Me?
by Jenna Bailey
ISBN: 9780571233137
When, in 1935, a young woman wrote a letter to the women's magazine Nursery World women from all over the country wrote back expressing similar frustrations. This work brings together this collection of personal stories following an extraordinary group of women.
REVIEW OF BOOK BY BERNARD MILLER  (WITH A PHOTOGRAPH OF THREE OF THE REMAINING MOTHERS )
Camden New Journal - Books: Can any Mother Help Me? by Jenna Bailey 15 Mar 2007
.... Bernard Miller worked as a UN housing and elections advisor from 1985 to ...
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/review/031507/books031507_03.html



ROSE HACKER'S WORK: JOURNALISM

Camden New Journal - ROSE HACKER - The oldest columnist in the world Published: 8 May 2008 http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/

How Rose Hacker's Column Began ... Facts according to Queen Victoria- MY mother had told me stories about doctors bringing babies in black bags or storks delivering them. MY mother and Queen Victoria had one thing in common. Neither was capable of believing in lesbianism. The only war worth waging is that on unnecessary conflicts? Who do they think they represent? ... Profit motive of the phoney sciences The sad state of things to come ... The war and peace within us all - I WANT to send a Christmas message to all my readers, especially friends from the past who have written wonderful letters to me... Our socialist dreams are fading - ARGUMENTS rage about where to build so-called “afford able housing”. For many people trying to find a first home... Lessons of second childhood- AS though it was meant to be, I started a new life in my second century... What happened to our dream?- I HAVE lived in a variety of housing and learned the importance of decent homes in people's lives. I never experienced personally... Beware the prophets of profit - NOW I'm really frightened… In one week last month I attended three funerals... Rich rewards in visual memories- I AM now nearly 18 months old. It is as if last March I was given a second century to start all over again... Children are fighting for an education- IF I write often about what I see as the tragedy of Margaret Thatcher's abolishing the Greater London Council and Inner... As women, we still have to work for greater equality- AT a mere 100 years old, it has had great impact. None the less, it ought to have had more... Ten questions for Labour's deputy leader candidates- REGULAR junk mail is bad enough but my recycling bin's overflowing with discarded letters from would-be... The safety of human lives should come before profit - LAST August 6 I was asked to speak at the Hiroshima Day memorial ceremony in Tavistock Square... Our world is run by men who behave like little boys- THE noble art of losing face may sometime save the human race ... Today's refugees are our class-mates- I CONSIDER myself classless. I grew up in a world where everybody knew their place ... £20 to a good cause from a man who preached hatred -WHEN I first started this column I wondered if anybody outside my family, friends and immediate... We can create utopia. So why do we lack the will? -  OH to be in England now that April's there.” What a miracle life is, whether human, animal or plant. At this... There's nobody we ever meet we can't learn from - I LEARN from everybody, young and old, including people others dismiss... We are forgetting our advances in child care - ON my 101st birthday, last Saturday, my great-grand-daughter informed me she'll be four in July ... Professional politicians are ruining democracy- IT was thrilling for me to live through the 20th century and witness the birth of our system of government by... 'I could go on forever' says Rose, 101 - AT 100 years old, she is the world's oldest correspondent, with a fortnightly column in the New Journal expounding... Children of all abilities need to mix and match - THE London County Council was set up in 1903, three years before my birth. It was abolished in 1964... A backward step in mental health care - LAST week's news of a new Mental Health Act, to allow people with mental illness to be locked up even with no history... Poverty should have been history by now - CHRISTMAS giving is over, it's time to count the cost. As usual, shopkeepers panicked the public was not buying... Money makes the world go morally bankrupt - WHILE I may bemoan the disappearance of the creativity I so value from London's schools and the consequent... Pupils need to play and to act in order to learn - TO a child, experiencing the sight of a tree bursting into leaf, the smell of a flower blooming, the sound...

OBITUARIES AND TRIBUTES

Obituary: Rose Hacker | From the Guardian | The Guardian 12 Mar 2008 ...
Obituary by Irene Bruegel.

As the "oldest newspaper columnist in the business", Rose Hacker, who has died aged 101, produced journalism with a difference for the Camden New Journal in north London. Her work relied upon a phenomenal memory of years of activity, insights and discussion. Rose's confidently articulated, old-fashioned values of solidarity and collectivity were deeply appreciated by readers, and her socialist feminism shone through all she did.

I was a teenager when I first met Rose, a friend of my mother's, at the Hampstead ladies' pond. From the 1960s they had shared a passion for social change, rooted in a progressive Jewish background of community service and radical thought. In the 1960s and 70s they were promoting birth control and sex education to free young women from unwanted pregnancies. In 1964 Rose drew my mother into her Sunday lunch club for mentally-ill people in Camden, collecting unsold food from local shops the night before. When Camden Mind opened its first hostel in 1974, Rose got down to it and cleaned its floors.

Rose Goldbloom was born in Marylebone ...
SOURCE: www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/12/3 - 64k


CAMDEN NEW JOURNAL OBITUARY
OBITUARY BY BERNARD MILLER
published 07.02.2008


Rose, to the end a light burning brightly

New Journal columnist, the world’s oldest, leaves as her legacy the example of a life spent in pursuit of challenges

ROSE Hacker, the New Journal columnist billed as the world’s oldest, died this week, just short of her 102nd birthday. In the 1930s, she was involved in the fight against fascism and worked to ease the plight of the working class during the Depression. She worked as a marriage guidance counsellor in the 1950s and in the 1970s served on the Greater London Council and then became president of the Progressive League. As well as writing a regular column for the New Journal – her final one appeared last week – she was an accomplished sculptor and took up tai chi, the Chinese keep-fit regime, in her 80s. Below, a friend of almost 50 years, Bernard MILLER, and others who knew Rose pay tribute to her indomitable spirit.

FEW people start a totally new career at the age of 100. Rose Hacker did just that, gaining local, national and international acclaim as a political columnist with this newspaper.

She was born in central London to Jewish immigrant parents. Her father was a successful manufacturer of women’s clothes, but little in her middle-class childhood suggested she would become a lifelong campaigner for the rights of the poor and underprivileged.

Yet by her teens, watching the wounded returning from World War I, she had already become a committed pacifist. Rose worked ceaselessly for peace and disarmament right up to her last days...

SOURCE:  http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/020708/news020708_01.html



Camden New Journal - Letters to the Editor: Rose Hacker remembered
BERNARD Miller got it just right in his tribute to Rose Hacker ...
SOURCE: www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/021408/letters021408_03.html