CATHY Havell moved to Oxford in 1992 to work for the Probation Service helping homeless ex-offenders into housing.

She went on to create and then lead Connection, the floating support team, based in Blackbird Leys supporting vulnerable people in their own homes.

Ms Havell then commuted to London to head the Policy Unit of Centrepoint, the national youth homelessness charity, where she was instrumental in co-ordinating conversations between young homeless people and Gordon Brown.

In 2001, she went freelance, working from Oxford, and providing policy advice to national and international charities as well as government departments.

This included a major study of issues affecting Roma people in Kosovo for Save the Children.

She re-connected with local charities and public bodies providing paid and free support to a wide range of organisations seeking to help the most marginalised people in the county, while also teaching at Ruskin College.

Work was only a small part of Miss Havell's life, she was also a cultural historian and was in the middle of a PhD on the history of child psychiatry when she died.

She threw herself into many aspects of cultural life in Oxford and was an enthusiastic participant in the Town and Gown race.

An inspired fiddle player through the 1990s, she could be seen playing with a variety of bands in Irish pubs in Oxford.

She performed at the Barbican in 2004 and became fascinated by Eastern European fiddle music and an expert at Klezmer tunes.

Before moving to Oxford, Ms Havell had been a student at Cambridge University where she protested against apartheid and helped to establish the women's resource centre, which is still training women to this day.

Friend Jane Butcher recalled: "She would arrive at tutorials covered in mud after camping at Greenham Common."

Ms Havell moved to London where she was central in the national campaign to stop Clause 28, working alongside Sir Ian McKellen, and travelled to Nicaragua to join a coffee picking brigade in support of the Sandinista revolution.

Ms Havell died at the age of 46 at Sobell House on May 23.