Carol Evans obituary

The Guardian

25-06-2025

My mother, Carol Evans, who has died aged 85, was a quiet force for social justice. When she was recently admitted to hospital, Carol was asked by a nurse what she did. 'I'm a political activist,' she replied.
From 1998 until 2007, she worked for the High Peak Rural Deprivation Forum, a campaigning charity bringing together residents, voluntary groups and the statutory sector to take action for Peak District communities. Carol secured funding from Oxfam to research rural poverty and, as convener of the forum's farming working group, led the publication of Hard Times, a 2004 report into the difficulties experienced by farming families in the Peak District, for which she gained national media coverage.
She lobbied parliament, often bringing marginalised groups face-to-face with policymakers. She believed in protest, going on marches and campaigning at party conferences.
One of her later roles, from 2015, was with the Independent Constitutionalists, a group that helps independent MPs get elected, and through them she advocated for a bottom-up approach to democracy.
She grew up in Bushey Heath, Hertfordshire, the youngest of the nine children of Eleanor (nee Banks) and Henry Morrell, a varnish manufacturer. While her brothers joined the family firm, a path barred to her and her sisters, Carol went to secretarial college. She found her calling as secretary in the politics department at the University of Essex. Underestimated by male academics, she proved herself by editing a political journal and organising sit-ins.
At Essex, she met Richard Evans, then a PhD student and later a lecturer in further education, and they married in 1971, going on to have five children. The family moved with Richard's job first to Norfolk and then to various locations around the UK, ending up in the Peak District. In her self-styled 'Earth Mother' years, Carol was early to organic, Fairtrade and ethical consumption, sewed her children's clothes and cut their hair, baked bread, made yoghurt and banned processed food.
After separating from Richard in the 1990s, Carol sought a fresh intellectual challenge. She embarked on a degree in politics and philosophy at Manchester University, approaching it with characteristic determination, and went on to immerse herself in political campaigning.
Carol believed politics happened not just in Westminster; it lived in everyday choices. She invested in her local hydroelectric plant and community shop, and banked with a credit union. She chaired her local transport group, advocating for rural rail access, and served on the board of High Peak CVS, which helps voluntary and community organisations, for nearly two decades.
Her colleagues described her as a determined campaigner who refused to take no for an answer. She believed in people, in progress and in showing up for what mattered.
Richard died in 2022. Carol is survived by her children, Matthew, Imogen, Dominic, Tristan and me, and six of her seven grandchildren.