Gina Owens

Gina Owens died late last night at the Macmillan Unit, Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. She had her closest friends and relatives around her.

When I visited her, two weeks ago, it was clear that beneath her dressing gown she had become thin and frail. She put her hands to her bald head whilst articulating her fear of dying.

But I will remember the Gina I knew in Manchester in the 1990s, with her clear and incisive mind, strong and healthy but never overweight physical frame, and shiny thick blonde hair. The Gina that thrived before the ravages of non-Hodgkins lymphoma and two punishing rounds of chemotherapy took hold.

Above all, I will remember that it was Gina who told me that 20th century international relations wre centred on the containment of Germany. That food production and market dynamics are fundamentally incompatible. And the biggest point of contact that I had with her when I visited her two weeks ago - when I said that everything in life was about people, and she looked at me and nodded in fierce agreement.