My best friend, Sarah Berger, who has died of cancer aged 69, was a political activist from a very young age; she cut her teeth on the Ban the Bomb Aldermaston march in 1958, at the age of 14. A teacher once accused her of wanting "to paint the school red".
Daughter of Christopher and Annabelle Hansen, the latter an activist herself, Sarah was born and educated in south London. She read sociology at Reading University and became a mental health social worker in Elephant and Castle, London, in the late 1960s. She and I met in Peckham in 1972, while engaged in a welfare rights programme linked to the Child Poverty Action Group.
In the 70s Sarah was a social worker at the Maudsley hospital addiction unit. Later, in 1993, she established Drinkline – the first national alcohol advice line. Her views on the use and abuse of alcohol were years ahead of the times and she was much in demand by the media.
Sarah made an impact in many political and social arenas. Her sons recall with affection how, in an act of solidarity with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, she sent them to school with purple hair, only to discover later that the dye did not wash out. She was a passionate advocate for justice in the developing world, following a trip to Africa in the early 90s. She participated in international protests at world summits in Prague, Genoa, Florence and Scotland. Age Concern secured her as their leading spokesperson for the 1999 International Year of Older Persons.
She was a founder member of a co-housing initiative which sprang from an ad in the Guardian in 1996 and led to 22 families setting up homes in an abandoned East Sussex asylum. Sarah devoted huge amounts of time and energy to making this community a success. But not content with the enjoyment she gained from living there, she worked to secure funding for a UK-wide agency, the UK Cohousing Network, to provide help to others wanting a more communal lifestyle.
Her years of activism taught her how to make the best use of the media to communicate a message. Thanks to her organisation and leadership, the Brighton and Hove arm of the World Development Movement won a reputation for its innovative stunts. In 2003, she had 40 of us dressed in white lying in the shape of giant scales of justice on Brighton beach, with television cameras standing by. As she aged, she enjoyed trading on her role as a grandmother to gain media interest for her latest campaigns.
Sarah is survived by her partner, Peter; her daughter, Sumaiya, from her first marriage; two sons, Jake and Gideon, from her second marriage; and six grandchildren.