TRIBUTES TO ELLEN LUBY - Campaigns champion

Published: 22 July, 2010

• ELLEN Luby was respected by many residents of Camden for all the support she gave them over 60 years.

Since the 1950s she battled to defend the rights of the public.

She would take up cases for people trying to get housed off the waiting list as well as those battling with private landlords.

She expected nothing in return for her hard work.

She has always been regarded as a heroine by those she helped and was held in high regard by many others.

She was the conscience of Camden, attending without fail most full council meetings since the 1950s, never afraid to confront persons of any size over injustices and discrimination.

She was tough, but this was the only way she knew, especially when getting the council to reconsider its position.

Ellen will be remembered as a leading light in the 1960 St Pancras Rent Strike, as a campaigner against the infamous landlord Peter Rachman, as a defender of Barry Sullivan and the Greenland Road Neighbourhood Advice Centre and for her work in the Defend Camden Housing Campaign.

She opposed the Iraq war and championed the rights of pensioners and trade union members.

She should be formally remembered by the council at the Town Hall as a huge character in the borough’s history.

DAVID FENNELLY
Hampstead Road, NW1