My friend and former colleague Jean Clark, who has died aged 92, was a successful teacher, lecturer and a key figure in Labour politics in Harlow, Essex. After moving to the town as a newly qualified English teacher in the 1950s, Jean became a great community activist, as a Labour party member, and as a member of Victory for Socialism, a leftwing pressure group within the party, which helped to get Stan Newens elected as Harlow’s Labour MP in 1964. Joining the International Socialists, she played a leading role in the Harlow Tenants’ Action group, which staged a rent strike in 1968 against Harlow Development Corporation’s rent rises and succeeded in getting them reduced.
The following decade she returned to the Labour cause, and became secretary of the constituency party. In that role, she helped lead my campaign for election as Harlow’s MEP in 1994. She then became a longstanding Labour councillor in Harlow, serving until her retirement in 2023.
Jean, as she was known all her life, was born Valerie Jean, in Exeter, to Ernest and Daisy Tucker, who owned a hardware shop. She was brought up in the West Country, where she was a county-level tennis player in her youth. After qualifying as a teacher in Lyme Regis, Jean moved to the rapidly growing new town of Harlow, where she taught English at Brays Grove school.
Jean married a fellow teacher, Brian Clark, in 1957. They divorced while still relatively young and he later became known as the writer of the play Whose Life Is It Anyway? In the 1960s Jean gained a degree in sociology at London School of Economics, then became a lecturer at Balls Park teacher training college in Hertford, which later became part of Hertfordshire University, from where Jean retired as a senior tutor.
Jean was warmly regarded by her colleagues and had many friends. A lifelong Guardian reader, she would walk every morning to Harlow Town station to buy her copy of the paper. A special tribute to her was held by Harlow council.
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