Michaela and I met in the early 1990s, both working in the same building off Clerkenwell Green in London, but if it had not been for a mutual friend making the introduction, our paths would never have crossed – because she worked in international development for HelpAge International and I was on the more frivolous fundraising side running glitzy special events for Help the Aged UK. (I like to think she was secretly jealous of my essential reading for work being Hello magazine as she was always very happy to listen to juicy pieces of celebrity gossip!) In spite of this our friendship blossomed over the next 30 years and how I have enjoyed meeting up when she was back in London, often at elegant venues for coffee or drinks, talking on every subject under the sun, sharing book recommendations, enjoying exhibitions, the ballet & theatre (we were due to see the Nutcracker together on New Years Eve but she was too poorly by then).
My early memories of her in 1991 are of a feisty, intrepid, highly intelligent, determined, dynamic woman, small in stature but mighty in commitment & effectiveness. She was travelling to eastern Europe to set up practical services for elderly people such as podiatry clinics and meals on wheels when the state provision had crumbled with the fall of communism; and then during those early days of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia she was there at the forefront, travelling in a white UN jeep, putting older refugees first as always. There will be many many smiliar stories of how courageous she was in often extreme circumstances. She never detered from doing what she believed was right in standing up for those less able and the more vulnerable. And courage is what comes to mind latterly as she dealt with the endless rounds of treatment, side-effects, setbacks and indignities of having to live with this hateful disease. What a woman and what a friend to so many of us. Go well, darling Michaela.