My twin sister, Eleanor Hards, who has died aged 73, worked for a decade as a pharmacist at the Christie hospital in Manchester and then in retail pharmacy in Manchester, Lincolnshire and Oxfordshire. After moving in 1987 to what she called the People’s Republic of Didcot, Eleanor was also active in Labour politics. In May 1995 both Eleanor and her husband, Nick, were elected Labour town and district councillors, Eleanor specialising in housing and public health; she stood down as a district councillor in May 2019.
Born in Lincoln, she was the daughter of John Jones, a vicar and hospital chaplain, and Janet (nee Roberts), a former nurse and later a health visitor. Our father liked to tell the story of how, in July 1951, he had to visit the local pram shop to cancel his order. Having milked the sympathy of the shop assistant, he gleefully asked for a twin pram instead, as Eleanor and I had arrived, premature and one of us unexpected, and were baptised hurriedly and named after our grandmothers.
