Flick Rea obituary

My mother, Flick Rea, who has died aged 88, was a stalwart of local politics in London, serving as a councillor in Camden for 35 years. She was leader of the Liberal and then Liberal Democrat group on Camden council twice, from the late 1980s to 2005 and from 2014 to 2020, and helped it to grow from a handful of seats to be the largest party on the council in 2006. She served as its cabinet member for culture and sport for four years, overseeing the borough’s contribution to the London Olympics. Flick represented the same ward, Fortune Green, continuously, winning nine elections in a row on the back of a huge personal vote. On her retirement in 2021, the local press hailed her as the “Queen of West Hampstead”. Born in Tiverton, Devon, as Felicity Corbin, she was the only child of Eustace Corbin, a teacher, and his wife, Phyllis (nee Brabner). She grew up in Taunton, Somerset, where she went to Weirfield school. From an early age Flick had wanted to work in the theatre, and after leaving school she attended Rada. Graduating in 1958, she began to work in theatre, and occasionally in television and cinema, under the name Felicity Peel, with bit parts in The Avengers and the film A Kin