Thank you, Claire Rayner: In praise of the ultimate agony aunt

She understood the role of the agony aunt better than anyone. Linda Blair pays tribute to Claire Rayner's care and kindness, and one recipient of her advice tells how much it meant to her.


Claire Rayner with Anne Diamond on TV-am in 1986. Photograph: Alpha Press
We are all going to miss Claire Rayner. Above all, we willl miss her straight talking, her compassion and her honesty. She was entirely certain about what mattered to her most – that every human being has the right to live as fulfilling a life as possible – and she fought for that right in every way she knew.

In today's world, full as it is of air-brushed photos and soundbites, many of us long to encounter a "real" person. In particular, when we look for guidance, we want to hear from someone we can identify with, yet someone who at the same time will comfort us, take charge and offer workable solutions. A tall order indeed, and yet it was one that Claire seemed able to meet.

She fulfilled many roles, but it was probably her work as an agony aunt that most of us remember first. I don't believe it is an understatement to say that she set the standard to which all agony aunts today should aspire. So what made her so effective?

To answer that question we need first to think about why people write to agony aunts, and why so many others want to read the results. Why would someone seek advice about their personal life from someone they've never met when they could talk to a friend or relative, or sit down with a counsellor or therapist? Perhaps because there are times when it can be an advantage not to confide in someone close, and a relief to avoid discussing things directly with another person.

When someone has covered up a problem for some time, either because they feel ashamed that they can't fix it, or because the problem itself is embarrassing, there may come a point when they feel it's too late to talk things through with loved ones. If they've failed repeatedly to overcome obstacles in their personal life, no doubt they'll have lost a lot of self-confidence as well. They may believe that if they disclose these failures to someone close, that person will then think less of them, and that this in turn will lower their self-esteem still further.

At the same time, they may also be afraid to go to a professional directly for fear of breaking down or being unable to express themselves properly.

Writing to someone anonymously neatly sidesteps all of these fears. It also allows individuals to maintain a sense of control because, on paper, they can reveal only as much as they wish to.

How, then, should an agony aunt respond to someone who needs to be comforted and reassured, but who also needs clear guidance and advice? What, in other words, did Claire do?

First and foremost, she listened well, and as one ordinary person listening to another ordinary person, rather than as a (healthy) professional attending to a (sick) patient. "I've been there," Claire would often say.

But she never fell into the trap of offering whatever solution worked for her, as if that were the only way. She recognised that everyone is different, and that each person needed a slightly different approach to their problem. She managed to tread that fine line between self-centred prescriptions and too-general, pat answers, offering instead sensible, specific suggestions.

Claire also knew how to convey to people that she considered each of them to be an important individual. I think this particularly benefited women – we all need to feel cared for, but in our society this is especially true for women. All too often the woman in the family is expected to be the sole caregiver, and often takes on a caring role in her work as well. Yet there is seldom anyone looking after her. It can be extraordinarily healing simply to feel that somebody cares, and Claire had a way of making everyone who approached her feel valued.

She also helped them to feel less isolated. It is one of our most basic human needs to feel that we belong to a group of some sort, and that we are similar to others in certain ways. When individuals feel totally alone in their predicament, fear and loneliness can cripple their powers of reason. Claire not only managed to convey empathy, but often she also made it clear that she knew of others who had encountered similar situations. This helped to ease people's sense of isolation. And of course when readers, viewers and listeners recognised a particular problem as similar to their own, they, too, no longer felt so alone.

She knew the secrets of effective problem-solving – that the most elegant solutions are almost always the simplest, and that seemingly big problems are best solved by breaking them into manageable parts. Even the most demoralised individuals were encouraged to give her advice a try.

Claire also managed to maintain a genuinely positive outlook, and this was even more admirable because of the dark times she herself had known. She was the eldest of four children of an East End family in London. Her parents were often on the run from business associates and sometimes the law, and the family endured many hasty moves around the country. She was often beaten, and as a teenager she ran away from home several times.

At one point the family were living in Canada, and when Claire developed a thyroid condition, her parents booked her into a psychiatric hospital so they could avoid the medical bills. She spent 15 months there, and at times she was restrained and force fed. There were other health problems, too – asthma, depression and breast cancer. Yet even at her poorliest, she remained determined to keep hope alive, and she passed this attitude on.

Such determination is vital in one who dispenses advice, because when things are really tough it means they can still encourage sufferers to get back on their feet. It also feels wonderful to spend time with genuine optimists – at the best of times they always make us feel better, and at the worst of times their outlook can be life-saving.

Finally, and by no means least important, Claire was funny. Humour dispels tension at least as effectively as a good cry. Claire had a wicked sense of humour, and she knew how to use it humanely, always as a tonic and never as a weapon. Even the last words she chose to give us, although profoundly serious in the message they convey, are laced with humour: "Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS, I'll come back and bloody haunt him."

This, then, is the approach that Claire embodied, and what she offered to those who asked her for help. It is, in my opinion, the gold standard: empathic listening; real compassion; a sense of belonging; practical, realistic advice; heartfelt optimism; kindly humour. Thank you, Claire Rayner.

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