Last month, our community lost one of its greatest champions, and we mourn his loss. Ivan Hazel was one of those characters who make a community- partly out of sheer personality, and partly because of his decades of service. He was one of the generation of Caribbean elders who, whilst never forgetting the island he came from, also threw himself with unrestrained enthusiasm, into British society. The range of mourners who attended his funeral at Fernhead Road Mothodist Church, alongside his extended family and friends, read like the annual report of Westminster’s Council of Voluntary Service- Queen’s Park Family Support Unit, Paddington Law Centre, the Yaa Asentewaa Centre, Dutchpot Lunch club, the church itself. Ivan touched many lives.

My most regular contact with him came annually at the Black History month events he organised at the church. There would be no chance of claiming a prior engagement- Mr Hazel (as most of us knew him- with a due sense of propriety) would book this into his guests’ diaries before the sweeping up had commenced on the previous event, and he would check throughout the year to make sure there was no backsliding. Mr Hazel was very clear indeed about the importance of Black History- he felt that a whole-hearted commitment to Britishness was supplemented, and not compromised, if black and minority ethnic communities knew and valued their own history and culture, and if the wider public knew also that British history and culture sits firmly in a global context.

Mr Hazel knew that communities don’t build themselves; the governments, local and national, can’t build them, either, but that politics is an essential ingredient, too, if we are to challenge ingrained inequalities and discrimination. He believed in self-help and mutuality, but to influence and shape public policy, not only to be an alternative to it.

I was proud to know Mr Hazel, and sorry that his death came before we had the chance to secure the honour for which some of his friends were working. Few people would have deserved it more. However, we will honour his memory, not least be re-dedicating ourselves to the work of patiently promoting individual opportunity and strong communities- above all, where the need is greatest.