Flick with daughter Kate and son Robert

Robert Rea writes a personal tribute to his mother, Alderman Flick Rea

Flick Rea (1938-2026)

My mother Flick, who has died at the age of 88, was a genuine force of nature.

A bustling ball of energy, a larger than life personality who loved to be centre stage and who inspired an incredible affection and loyalty among the people who knew her, she created a buzz that affected everyone around her.

My fondest memory is of her scurrying down West End Lane, carrier bags full of stuff that needed doing or delivering, stopping every two minutes to chat to one of her many friends and acquaintances, or to someone whose problems she’d helped sort out.

Sometimes it seemed that everyone knew Flick.

She had a talent for talking to people, getting to know them and charming them to do things for her. As a journalist, I was forever finding out the extent of my mother’s voluminous contacts book. “Oh, your Flick Rea’s son” was a common refrain when chatting to potential interviewees, especially in the political field.

So much so that I sometimes felt it would save a great deal of time and trouble just to change my name by deed poll to “Flick Rea’s son” and have done with it.

Mum loved life, loved people (well, most of them anyway), and had a passion for local politics. Most of all, she adored West Hampstead, her home for more than 60 years.

Especially dear to her heart was Fortune Green, the ward she represented as a Liberal Democrat councillor for more than three decades.

Little pleased her more than being able to wangle some extra concession or improvement for her community. As she said about her approach to politics in her acceptance speech when she was made an honorary alderman of the borough: “I never wanted to change the world. I just wanted to get a bus stop erected.”

Flick Rea during her 35 years as a councillor in Camden

People who met mum would always be struck by her sense of theatre. That was hardly surprising. She trained as an actress in her youth, and although she gave up her career when she became a mother, she never gave up her dramatic inclinations.

She loved to be in the spotlight (ironically enough given the name of the campaigning leaflet that accompanied her career in local politics) and often used her theatrical upbringing to great effect at Camden Town Hall. She really knew how to win an audience and work it.

Her love of acting was not confined to the council chamber, however.

One of my cherished memories of her at home was how long a simple board game like Cluedo would take to play, simply because mum would get into character to take part. She put on a fine Mrs Peacock – even though at the time it would have my sister and I rolling our eyes in exasperation.

Although Flick would freely admit to being fond of the limelight, she was also fascinated by other people and their lives. She loved knowing what was happening and finding things out – preferably before anyone else. I have that in common with her – to be honest she’d have made a fantastic journalist.

She and I had so many interests in common – in particular politics obviously, but also a deep love of history.

She had an encyclopaedic knowledge of large portions of European history and the British monarchy (on which it’s fair to say a couple of my primary school projects relied somewhat heavily) and was fascinated by the history of the area and the city she lived in.

Our pet passion though was genealogy and the history of our family – an ancestral history that, to her great delight, I was able to trace directly back to the royal rulers of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

That regal connection seems somewhat apt for the woman that the local press once dubbed the “Queen of West Hampstead” (she was secretly chuffed by that, even though she thought “Queen of Fortune Green” had a more lyrical feel to it).

Flick Rea helps kickstart the refurbishment of the Kentish Town Sports Centre in 2008

I think that’s how many people will remember her – holding court at the town hall, or at the Jester Festival, or in her kitchen surrounded by haphazard piles of pamphlets and leaflets and scraps of paper with hastily-scrawled messages and names and numbers written on them.

And of course, a glass of whisky on the go and the ubiquitous pall of cigarette smoke that would permeate your hair and clothes.

Mum was a smoker almost to the end. Sadly for her, she never got to realise her last wish at St Mary’s Hospital for one final ciggie before she died.

But she did manage to charm the doctors into letting us bring in a bottle of whisky to alleviate the situation. The consultant in charge of my mum’s case told me: “If Flick wants it, then Flick can have it”.

That’s my mum in a nutshell. Leaving the stage the same way she performed on it – getting her own way and getting away with it.

Farewell, mum – you did SO much more than get a few bus stops erected.

ROBERT REA