BARONESS FISHER OF REDNAL was a politician who spent her career taking the concerns of ordinary families to the heart of the highest decision making.
Doris Mary Gertrude Satchwell was born in 1919 and was educated at Tinker’s Farm Girl’s School, Birmingham, Fircroft College and Bournville Day Continuation College. She worked in various local factories and in 1945 joined the Labour Party. Seven years later she was elected to Birmingham City Council where she rose to chairman of the housing committee. In 1961 she served as a justice of the peace and was national president of the Co-operative Women’s Guild in 1961-62.
After the death of the veteran Labour MP, Victor Yates, in 1969, Fisher was selected to fight the subsequent by-election but was defeated by the Liberal, Wallace Lawler. In the general election a year later she gained the seat. Fisher’s parliamentary career was cut short by a boundary reorganisation, which led to her standing down before the first general election of 1974.
Fisher was made a life peer and in 1975 went to the European Parliament as a delegated MEP. She left the European Parliament in 1979 and was Opposition Whip and Spokesman on the Environment in the House of Lords in 1983-84.
She was president of regional branches of several charities and served as vice-president of the Association of Municipal Authorities, 1980-97, and the Association of District Councils, 1982-97. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Central England in 1998.
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Fisher was very much the local politician, having lived and worked with her constituents with whom she felt very connected. She approached all matters from the perspective of how they would affect people and their families. Her down-to-earth outlook was sometimes mistaken for naivety but people who knew her well appreciated her sharp mind and wit.
Her husband, Joseph, died in 1978. She is survived by their two daughters.
Baroness Fisher of Rednal, Labour MP and MEP, was born on September 13, 1919. She died on December 18, 2005, aged 86.