The Body Book (Non-fiction)

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She was a sane voice that could be relied upon to help them make sense of the knotty complications of their personal, sexual lives. During her training Claire Rayner remembered that she was extremely withdrawn: "I didn't want marriage or children because I didn't want to inflict the same things on them. She would have adored it, and once again I was overcome by an emotion that has been ever-present this week: huge pride in everything my old mum achieved. Diana, a Radiolab listener, says, "My mother left it in my room one day and 'it' was never mentioned again! I feel that this charity represents people like me who have been part of the hearing world for most of their lives and have suddenly found themselves having to cope with a hearing loss.

She tried to be a party woman, joining New Labour as it headed into power, but she was more naturally a person of opposition and it did not surprise me when she broke with Tony Blair's government over its refusal to introduce free care for the elderly, as recommended by the royal commission she had sat on.It's written in a format where children can either read with their parents or read alone, and so find out important facts at their own pace.

In 1958 she wrote her first letter to the Nursing Times, complaining about working conditions for nurses. Like Winfrey, Claire Rayner was qualified to contribute to discussions about child abuse: "I know, lovey, I've been there, too. Among her most recent targets were the Pope ("His views are so disgusting and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him") and the Prime Minister ("Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him"). It changes your perspective on things which is why I am so pleased to be able to help Hearing Concern raise awareness of this hidden disability and get rid of the taboo that surrounds the deaf and the hard of hearing once and for all. In the same year she appeared in her own late-night television show, Related to Sex, screened on what she described as the "rude slot".she wears hearing aids in both ears and also has Age Related Dry Macular Degeneration, a sight loss common in older people. It was why she was president of the Patients Association and dedicated so much time and energy to it. She described her father, a tailor's cutter, as "a fantasist", and her mother as "exceptionally pretty, which is always dangerous. I have found it invaluable with my five year old son and we often refer to it when he asks us "tricky" questions about his body. In recent years she had come to assume that, with her days as a weekly advice columnist for the tabloids long gone – she gave up her last problem page, for the now defunct Today newspaper, in the 90s – and her appearances on TV sporadic, fewer people knew who she was.

Rayner claimed that she had based the novel on Medea, adding: "but it's also about mental hospitals". After retiring Claire Rayner devoted herself to, as she put it, "biting the arses of those in power", in particular lambasting the government for its failure to ensure proper care for the elderly. The Rayner family asks that anybody wishing to make a charitable donation in Claire's name do so to the Patients Association. I will never forget the morning she opened the post to find that a chap, concerned at the shape of his erection, had lovingly carved a representation of it in wood and sent it her way.They sat in boxes underneath her desk and we, and our friends, were encouraged to avail ourselves of their contents. Claire made an impact because she hated the conspiracy of silence: the sort of silence that had allowed her to endure an abusive childhood; the silence that meant, as a 17-year-old nursing cadet, she was tasked with laying out the body of a girl her own age who had died of septicaemia caused by a botched backstreet abortion. Rayner helped Sense to promote "The Good Life" campaign booklet, tips on how to cope with sight and hearing loss in older age. This is a really informative book, without going into too much graphic detail, making it incredibly useful in helping explain bodily functions to children.

She has been held up, rightly, as an expert on sex and relationships – though, intriguingly, this can't be said to have come from experience. There were still the books, both fiction and non-fiction, but she had to find another way to make an impact on public life and she did so through political campaigning.Despite what one reviewer described as the "explicit" content of the book, he commended Rayner on her "down to earth" approach to the subject. Having made her name as a columnist in magazines and newspapers, she became a distinctive figure on the television screen, and was once described as "the opposite of a shrinking violet. We take pride in offering a wide selection of used books, from classics to hidden gems, ensuring there?