Death of tenants' leader Lenny Rodgie - Tributes paid to epilepsy campaigner

Published: 27 January 2011
by TOM FOOT
 

LENNY Rodgie – a ­tenants’ leader and ­campaigner who raised awareness of epilepsy – has died. He was 62.

Mr Rodgie, who lived in Camden all his life, was found by staff at the supported housing block in Endell Street, Holborn, on Monday night. The cause of death is not known.

The son of an ambulance driver, Mr Rodgie was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 11, shortly before starting secondary education at Sir William Collins, now South Camden Com­munity School.

His mother, Joan, remembered his expert spelling as a boy and how he bore his condition with quiet dignity throughout his life.

Mr Rodgie raised thousands of pounds for the National Epilepsy Society, spoke in parliamentary committee debates and even agreed to be the first person to have an epileptic fit on television.

He was praised by Professor Matthew Walker after volunteering for a series of pioneering clinical brain trials at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neuroscience in Bloomsbury.

In an interview in 2008, Mr Rodgie told the New Journal: “It wasn’t bravery, it was desperation.” 

Part of the 15 per cent of epilepsy sufferers who are resistant to medication, he had put himself forward for eight drug trials in the past 10 years.

Born at his mother’s home in Arlington Road, Camden Town, he worked for the Aerated Bread Company (ABC), then based on the site of today’s Camden Town Sainsbury’s.

His hobbies included judo and compiling a giant family tree, dating back hundreds of years. Recently, he arranged to meet a distant relative from Australia in Camden.

Mr Rodgie chaired the tenants’ association at Delancey Studios, Delancey Street, Camden Town, where he fought for better conditions at the council block and campaigned for electric gates to keep drug dealers out of the stairwell.

His brother, Bill, said: “He had Camden running through his veins. He rang me up last week to tell me how good he was feeling and that he was so happy to have gone through a day without having a fit. 

“He’d sometimes have 20 fits a day. I’d say he’d had at least one every day for the last 50 years. 

“He must have been really strong to survive it.”

Mr Rodgie’s daughter, Diane Wallace, who lives in Oval Road, Camden Town, said: “He had a very generous nature. He loved making big gestures.”

He is survived by a sister, Frances, three daughters, Diane, Lorna and Alison, and two grandchildren, Jake and Daniel. 

Details of his funeral will appear in the New Journal next week.