My mother, Carol Evans, who has died aged 85, was a quiet force for social justice. When she was recently admitted to hospital, Carol was asked by a nurse what she did. “I’m a political activist,” she replied.
From 1998 until 2007, she worked for the High Peak Rural Deprivation Forum, a campaigning charity bringing together residents, voluntary groups and the statutory sector to take action for Peak District communities. Carol secured funding from Oxfam to research rural poverty and, as convener of the forum’s farming working group, led the publication of Hard Times, a 2004 report into the difficulties experienced by farming families in the Peak District, for which she gained national media coverage.
