Cathy Havell

She went on to create and then lead Connection, based in Blackbird Leys, supporting vulnerable people in their own homes.

Ms Havell then commuted to London to head the Policy Unit of Centrepoint, the national youth homelessness charity, where she was instrumental in co-ordinating conversations between young homeless people and Gordon Brown.

In 2001, she went freelance in Oxford working with local charities and public bodies while also teaching at Ruskin College.

She was also a cultural historian and was in the midst of a PhD on the history of child psychiatry when she died.

She was an inspired fiddle player and through the 1990s could be seen playing with a variety of bands in Irish pubs in Oxford.

Before moving to Oxford, Ms Havell had been a student at Cambridge University where she protested against apartheid and helped to establish the Women's Resource Centre, which still trains women.

Her friend Jane Butcher said: "She would arrive at tutorials covered in mud after camping at Greenham Common."

Ms Havell moved to London where she was central in the national campaign to stop Clause 28, working alongside Sir Ian McKellen.

She also travelled to Nicaragua to join a coffee picking brigade in support of the Sandinista revolution.

Her last two years were a difficult journey through a battle with cancer.

She will be greatly missed by friends, family, colleagues and children she was close to.

Ms Havell died at the age of 46 at Sobell House in Oxford on May 23.