My friend Maggie Phelps, who has died of cancer aged 69, was an advice worker who promoted citizens’ rights through information and advocacy.
Maggie joined the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in 1972 at a time when advice work was blossoming. Her four years at Paddington Neighbourhood Advice Bureau and Law Centre in west London influenced her profoundly, and though she worked after that for Lambeth housing department and in student welfare at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich), she rejoined CAB in 1983 as manager of its busy Kentish Town office in north London.
She stayed there for 23 years, building up a skilled, committed team whose “we try harder” approach righted many injustices and turned around many lives. However, in later years she fought a bitter rearguard action against the encroachment of Blairite, corporate ideology into the service. This, along with cutbacks and government policy changes, made it impossible for her to work in the way that she believed was right, and she resigned in 2006. For the rest of her life Maggie worked in the tribunal service of the Ministry of Justice, and also developed skills in massage and healing touch therapy.
She was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside, to pacifist and socialist parents, Kathleen (nee Fleetwood), a teacher, and Glyn Phelps, a Presbyterian minister, who died when she was 10. She went to Christ’s Hospital girls school in Hertford as a boarder, which she hated, and honed her rebellious instincts there. However, she spent happier sixth-form years at home in Bridgwater, Somerset, attending Bishop Fox’s school in Taunton, and, after a degree in sociology at Birmingham University and a year at the Institute of Education in London, began her work with CAB.
Maggie was active in the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s and 80s, especially in the National Abortion Campaign (formed to defend the Abortion Act of 1967 against proposed amendments).She was a long-term member of the Labour party and CND.
After the end of a relationship when she was 40, she lived alone. Her welcoming flat was the scene of many parties, and a sanctuary for friends old and young. She loved travel, reading, languages and living with her cats.
Her love of choral singing became a real passion and last December, when she was already very ill, she sang in Handel’s Messiah at the Albert Hall for one last time.
She is survived by her siblings, Liz and Mike.
