Later she became rather immobile, and thought that she might have motor neurone disease. I investigated those motorized chairs that people use, and tried to persuade her to let me buy her one, so that she could go around a bit rather than staying permanently in her house. But she did not wish it.
In much earlier years, as a young Turk, she had learned some Russian, quite assiduously, and made some visits to the Soviet Union, at a time when that was quite hard, quite expensive, and quite uncomfortable. What I remember most is her kindness. But she and her two friends with their left-wing views were emblematic members of a certain generation, a certain experience, a certain undoubted and undaunted idealism.
