London Cyclist Special Issue on Women and Cycling. Spring 2024.
Age 89 – I’m hoping to get to 90 on my bike.
Borough: Camden
How it started: I retired in about 2000 and wanted to do something interesting. The local LCC group coordinator put out a few cries for help on the Camden Yahoo list and I’ve been on the committee ever since.
The intellectual challenge: I was an academic computer scientist. It’s the intellectual challenge that keeps me looking at consultations and seeing how things work. Camden Cyclists have audited over 500 highway consultations in the past 20 years. They’re all available on the group website.
Showing support: A typical consultation will get a few hundred responses. But for one key cycle track (Tavistock Place) we drummed up support. The council got more than 15,000 responses, 75% positive, which they’ve never had before or since. It must have been hard work reading them all.
Having power: I think your council ultimately deals with you because you’re electing them. Whereas bodies like Hampstead Heath management don’t have any sympathy for us and we should have realised earlier to stop wasting our efforts.
Having patience: When you see little bits on the road that you think you might have caused to happen, it’s a really nice feeling. There’s a one-way street just up from us that’s just gone two-way for cycling and I was so pleased. I think we first asked for it in about 2009.
Jean and her husband George are previous winners of LCC’s Campaigner of the Year award. Link to interview by Melanie Etherton.