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2025-01-24 15:30:00
The journalist Charlotte Raven, who has died aged 55, was usually the tallest particular person in a room, and, with probably the most angular of bob hairstyles, she ensured that she was at all times observed. She held everybody’s consideration effortlessly with sharp opinions, literary allusions and good old style salacious gossip.
In 2021, after beginning experimental remedy for Huntington’s illness (HD), the sickness that led to her dying, she wrote a memoir, Affected person 1, in collaboration together with her youthful brother, Daniel, by which she seemed again on a profession marked by controversies. She stated: “Being paid to be horrible about folks prompted a whole lot of collateral injury to my relationships.” She was referring to the interval in her 20s when she blazed away on the small however influential journal the Fashionable Assessment, and later as a columnist for the Guardian.
She was characteristically astringent even in her evaluation of herself. In fact, her writing was at all times guided by a perception in equity and freedom, which marked her out from the extra nihilistic of her friends, together with the author she was most intently related to in these years, Julie Burchill, who went from being her boss to her mentor, her lover and, in the end, her sister-in-law, when Julie and Daniel married in 2004.
Charlotte was born in Streatham, south London, earlier than the household moved to her beloved Brighton. She described her father as “enigmatic”. Vivian Raven, generally known as Murph, served in each the RAF and the Royal Navy earlier than changing into a journalist and writer within the obligation free trade. If he was the nice cheerleader for capitalism, her mom labored for the opposite facet. Susan (nee Myall) was a Marxist who had been arrested at CND demonstrations. Charlotte turned Susan’s co-conspirator once they each joined Militant, the Trotskyist group shaped to take over Labour from the within in a method generally known as “entryism”.
It may very well be stated the technique impressed Charlotte’s life, as she sought to take over the establishments she cherished or admired, starting with Brighton and Hove highschool, the place she organised scholar strikes; and Manchester College, the place, finding out English literature, she organised the ousting of the union’s communications officer, Derek Draper, earlier than profitable an election because the left’s candidate for girls’s officer. There was consternation when it was found she was by then relationship Derek, who had forgiven her for ending his college political profession and seemingly helped her marketing campaign by stealing and destroying all the print-run of a problem of the union’s newspaper that disparaged Charlotte.
Charlotte and Derek made a formidable pair once they arrived collectively in London, gossiping and scheming between parliament and the Groucho Membership. They at all times labored higher as mates slightly than lovers, retaining a deep affection for one another that lasted till Derek’s dying from issues because of Covid in 2024.
Charlotte dropped out of journalism college after her letter to the Fashionable Assessment introduced a suggestion of a job from the editor and co-owner Toby Younger. When this led to intercourse, Charlotte declared that it was sure to occur eventually so it was higher to get it over with. She was quickly plotting to remake the paper in her personal picture. The plan took form throughout her affair with Younger’s co-owner, Julie Burchill, which noticed the couple seem on the entrance of the tabloids and led to the tip of Julie’s marriage to the journalist Cosmo Landesman.
Toby was so rattled by Charlotte’s problem that he sabotaged the journal slightly than see it fall into her arms. Charlotte countered by relaunching the title, producing a sleekly abrasive journal that she hoped represented a development from the contrarianism of the unique. It’s a measure of Charlotte’s seductive aptitude that she carried Julie together with her, when Julie’s politics at all times aligned extra intently with Toby’s; however their variations led to the tip of the affair, and finally of their friendship.
The brand new Fashionable Assessment ran for less than 5 points. Charlotte returned to publishing in 2013 with a plan to relaunch Spare Rib, which she introduced earlier than asking the journal’s founders. A gathering with Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe went so badly that the title was quickly modified to Feminist Instances. The brand new journal didn’t make it to a launch concern. Charlotte was already fighting facets of HD, notably chorea, or involuntary actions.
She had taken a check for HD in 2007 after studying that her father was ailing. Murph was widowed after the dying of Susan throughout a coronary heart bypass operation in 2000. His motion and, later, his behaviour turned erratic within the ensuing years. Charlotte discovered Murph had HD in a round means, through his second spouse and a enterprise colleague. The revelation got here in 2005, on the morning of the 7/7 terror assault in London, a coincidence that welded the sense of devastation collectively within the minds of Charlotte and her husband, Tom Sheahan, a documentary-maker, whom she had married in 2003. Tom was filming within the London underground when she telephoned in tears with the information, simply earlier than the cellphone system went down.
Charlotte and Daniel’s discovery that HD ran by means of their household is recounted in Affected person 1. Murph’s childhood had been chaotic. His mom, Ada, had initially been identified with schizophrenia and institutionalised, and one among Charlotte’s uncles had additionally died of the illness. The memoir is an unflinching account of Charlotte’s character and the breakdown of her marriage. Tom and Charlotte separated in 2018, which Charlotte selected responsible on the exorbitant calls for she made on her husband, exacerbated by an sickness that’s not solely debilitating and deadly however results in character modifications, together with anger and reminiscence points.
They obtained a decree nisi, however after residing aside for 4 years, determined to transform their dwelling, resulting in an unconventional and infrequently difficult interval by which Tom and their kids, Anna and John, lived on the higher flooring, and Charlotte, who required round the clock care, lived on the bottom flooring.
Charlotte was devastated that the experimental remedy detailed in her memoir was unsuccessful. If her kids ought to undergo from HD, she had hoped her legacy could be a remedy. But she took huge enjoyment of seeing them select their paths and flourish.
She is survived by Anna, who’s finding out English literature, as Charlotte had completed, John, who’s a dance scholar specialising in ballet, and Tom.
