My sister, Gillian Hall, who has died aged 84, used a wheelchair for a great deal of her life, a mode of transport that she weaponised in support of people with disabilities.
A congenital cyst at the base of her spine – undiagnosed until her teens – had caused her increasing pain and innumerable spells in hospital as surgeons strove to deliver more than palliative care, and in her 30s her right leg was amputated.
In the 1980s she began volunteering for Disability in Camden (Disc), which campaigned for disabled rights in that north London borough, with Gill cheerfully to the fore in many demos.
Later that decade she helped to found Women and Health (W+H), close to her council flat in Camden Town; this charity offers holistic treatments and a safe space for women with health, domestic and other problems.
Gill’s organising talent was treasured. At W+H she served both as chair of the trustees and company secretary, but was just as likely to be found acting as temporary receptionist or listening to a victim of domestic abuse.
The daughter of Muriel (nee Filsell), a secretary, and Gilbert Hall, a Workers’ Educational Association lecturer, Gillian was born in Oxford and brought up in Hertfordshire. She attended girls’ schools in Berkhamsted and St Albans, and studied Italian at University College London, but a medical crisis meant that she could not finish her degree.
She trained for office work, becoming eventually an executive assistant to the directors of a firm of architects and planners, Llewelyn-Davies Weeks. They specialised in designing hospitals, though Gill wryly noted that her own extensive frontline experience as a patient was not called upon. Far more rewarding was her unpaid work with Disc and W+H.
Gill also served on a World Health Organisation programme comparing her own experiences of disability policies and problems with those of women in other countries.
Colleagues recall her international searches for usable toilets from Dublin to Łódź in Poland. In Paris, her carer parked illegally outside the Louvre because, after many vain attempts, it seemed the best bet to meet Gill’s need; the museum staff were delighted to show off their new lift for disabled people, though disconcerted by the specialised and limited purpose of the visit.
When Gill went on a trip to Niagara Falls, US border officials demanded that she should climb steps to their office to be identified. As her driver went up to argue, Gill (barely 5ft tall) called out from the car for other tourists to hear: “Tell ’em you’re smuggling in one-legged midgets.”
She is survived by me and her niece and nephew.
