"Mehr and her mother settled at Oakcroft, where the house had extra accommodation for visitors and workers on the four acres of the market garden she developed and maintained. She also had a spinning wheel and was a potter and a knitter. Many of her workers stayed for years and became long-term friends."
"An early participant in the British yoga revolution, she collaborated with June Johns on her book Practical Yoga, published in 1974. Graduating with an economics degree in 1953, she then returned to India, travelling overland alone for several months and working in a kibbutz in Israel along the way, before training to be a village worker in Sevagram, Gandhi's ashram."
"A member of the Chester branch of Women for Peace, she was regularly involved in protests against cruise missiles in the 1980s, and visited the Greenham Common women to provide supplies and moral support. In 1990 she married Nicholas Gillett, a Quaker teacher and peace activist who joined her at Oakcroft."
Mehr Fardoonji, who died aged 95, was a pioneering organic farmer and yoga teacher who dedicated six decades to running Oakcroft market garden in Cheshire. Born in Lahore, she studied economics at the London School of Economics before traveling to India, where she trained as a village worker at Gandhi's ashram and helped settle landless families in the Himalayas. Returning to England in 1959, she established Oakcroft as an early Soil Association-registered organic farm while collaborating on yoga publications and teaching. Beyond farming, she was a peace activist involved in 1980s anti-nuclear protests and supported the Greenham Common women's movement. She also practiced pottery, knitting, and spinning, creating a community space where workers became lifelong friends.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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