Mary Ogbogoh

WHEN Mary Ogbogoh’s only child Emeka was born in 1971 she was given the devastating diagnoses he would never walk or talk, after complications during the delivery left him starved of oxygen.

But she didn’t let that get on top of her.

The Welsh political activist and life-long Labour party member, who has died aged 92, knew exactly what needed to be done: just get on with the job of making sure her son would one day be able to lead an independent life.

‘“If she came up against an obstacle, her approach to it was: How do I get past this? What do I need to do to overcome it?” said Barry Edwards, a former Labour councillor and mayor of Islington, and a friend of Mary’s for more than 40 years.

“I remember knocking on her door and because I was fairly new to the area I was told to go and chat with various people and she was one of them,” he said. “I think I got her entire life history over a couple of cups of tea. She was very chatty.”

Born in 1932 in seaside town Barry, Wales, she grew up watching German planes bomb the docks of her home town during the Second World War.

The daughter of a school caretaker and a homemaker, she used to say she was a “bit of an afterthought,” coming along some time after her brother and sister.

A happy childhood was spent playing in the school tennis courts after school when nobody else was using them, before training to be a teacher and eventually moving to London in the 1950s.

Having been raised a socialist, she then moved to Nigeria in the 1960s “to put something back to bits of the world that Britain had taken a lot from,” said Mr Edwards.

“Her politics was very strong socialist and very anti-racist and anti-imperialist.”

She returned to London at the outbreak of the Biafran War in 1967 in Nigeria, and eventually settled on the Bemerton estate, off Caledonian Road, where she would live for the next 40 years.

It was around this time she met her husband, Fide Ogbogoh, an administrator for the Nigerian Fire Brigade Service.

After Emeka was born with learning difficulties, she left full-time employment to focus on caring for him and turned one of the rooms in their small flat into a gymnasium for him.

Turning to a pioneering new approach to brain injuries, known as “patterning,” developed in America with war veterans, by the age of five he had learned to walk and talk through the use of repetitive exercises.

Mary Ogboboh in the 1970s

Emeka went on to attend a special school, before later moving into supported housing.

The marriage came to an end, but the couple maintained a friendship.

Emeka said: “Mum continued to teach me so my mental and physical capacity increased and, by the age of 12, I was able to go to school. So, in an even more considerable way than with most parents, I can say that mum made me who I am.”

He remembered her sense of humour and laughed about a recent visit to see her. “I asked ‘Do you know who I am?’ and she replied, ‘Of course I do, but you ­didn’t come out that big!’”

He added: “Even when things were tough her sense of humour would always break through.

She would raise her eyebrows and turn on that cheeky grin as she saw the humour in any situation.” As well as her Labour activism, she was also a member of CND, campaigned against Apartheid and was involved in many anti-racism movements.

In the 1980s she was the chair of the then Thornhill ward Labour party group. She also knew how to let her hair down, and her door was regularly thrown open to host “riotous” parties.

A keen rosé wine drinker, she was also known to savour a brandy on occasion.   Injuries resulting from a fall at her home some years ago saw her move to a care home in Sidcup.

“She died unexpectedly, though peacefully, in her sleep and will be much missed,” said Mr Edwards.

She leaves behind her son, Emeka, and her niece Sarah Gow.

All are welcome to her funeral being held today (Friday) at 2.45pm at the Islington Crematorium. Attendees are asked to wear green, her favourite colour.