A fighter to the end, Claire the lion-heart never lost her passion

Not long out of hospital after a dreadful five-month illness

which almost killed her, she'd lost 100lbs and was looking gaunt, needed a couple of walking sticks and was considerably more frail than when I had previously met her. But the fighting spirit was intact and immediately cranked into caring mode.

"We've got homemade soup, delicious sandwiches and boozy cake for you!" declared the former nurse, agony aunt, prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction and guardian of the NHS. Her gentle actor/artist husband Des, with her through 50-odd years of marriage, three children, and countless causes close to her heart, urged Claire to eat. She barely touched a morsel, and instead fussed over her guest.

Illness might have caused her appetite to wane, but she still had that old fire in her belly. Her knees were letting her down, and her famous voice had not yet regained its usual oomph, but such was her character that she could still move mountains from a comfy chair.

That day her worries were not about herself – she is the least whingeing woman I have ever met – but about the stress and worry she had put her "lovely family" through. She was concerned, too, that she had been "useless" for months while there was work to be done.

Because of her background in nursing, health education, and as former chairman of the Patients' Association, she had been invited to join the Royal Commission on Long-Term Care of the Elderly, set up by the Labour Government. Claire had been a staunch – but not uncritical – party supporter for 50 years.

The most crucial proposal tabled by the Commission – for free personal care for the elderly – was ignored, although it was implemented in Scotland. "It's sheer bloody humanity," said Claire. "We take it for granted that every child has a right to be looked after and loved. Why can't we make the same decision about care of that child when he grows up and gets old?"

Rayner left Labour and joined the Lib Dems, who did back the cause. Personal care had been the final straw, following on from other irritations such as "demonisation" of refugees, attitudes to the disabled and lone parents and a general neglect of Labour's basic principles. In the end she decided: "I'd rather be an idealist than a power broker."

Until her death, she continued to make the best possible nuisance of herself as often as she could, frequently espousing concerns raised in the hundreds of letters in her mailbag. After her years as a newspaper and magazine agony aunt she had found a new audience, discussing medical problems and answering audience queries on daytime TV and radio.

Her own health problems rarely got a mention, although they included four artificial knees and a double mastectomy due to cancer. Typically she quipped: "I'd had them a long time; they were nothing special." After each personal setback, she bounced back to hassle politicians some more; anyone who'd thought a couple of sticks and shaky teacup meant she was done was hopelessly deluded.Rayner was associated with dozens of charities right up to her death, and any organisation lucky enough to have her as a patron felt the benefit very quickly, as she threw prodigious energies into events, interviews, the lobbying of ministers and generally using her considerable clout, characteristic pragmatism and gift for the kind of plain speaking that could leave bruises.

She had been an abused child – beaten regularly by her mother – and then suffered as a teenager from an overactive thyroid. After emigrating to Canada, her parents refused to pay for the operation she needed and she was left for a year in a psychiatric hospital before returning to the UK and having the op on the newly-formed NHS. The treatment left her with her instantly recognisable gravelly voice.

Lion-hearted Claire Rayner spoke out for others because she knew how it felt to be weak and helpless. Some of her personal views could be unpopular – for example she was pro-choice and believed the age of consent should be 14. She would make her arguments in that matter-of-fact way, but listen courteously

and intently to the views of

others in case there was something new to learn. The fire that made her staunch in her humanism and her beliefs in equality, decency and respect

was matched, say those close to her, by her passionate supportiveness as a friend.

"Claire Rayner" became a euphemism for all agony aunts. Her only real use for fame lay in harnessing it to help her stick

her two penn'orth in where possible, trying to make a difference in the spheres of health and social inequality.

Advice columnist Denise Robertson, one of Claire Rayner's many friends and fans, said: "She's going to be a hard person to replace." But she is surely altogether irreplaceable.

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