Margaret Owen on the kindness and encouragement the trailblazing politician showed fellow students, and Adrian Slade on working with her in the Liberal party
I was at St Paul’s girls’ school with Shirley Williams, two years her junior (Obituary, 12 April). I remember, as a 13-year-old, hearing her passionately decrying inequality and poverty, and applauding William Beveridge, the welfare state and the 1944 Education Act. It was from St Paul’s that she won her scholarship to Oxford University.
Even then, her kindness was unique, and her encouragement of us younger pupils very special. This characteristic meant that in later life she felt a responsibility to give so much time to the needs of her wider family, in spite of her full political and academic work, and demonstrates her unique goodness and generosity.
