Campaigning for the decriminalisation of cannabis and prostitution is not the activity of your average 90-year-old. But then Ilse von Engel would never want to be described as average.

The veteran Oxford campaigner, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, has announced her retirement from the management committee of the Oxford branch of Age Concern after more than a quarter of a century.

Speaking from her home in Kingston Road, Oxford, where she has lived for 50 years, she could be expected to say she now plans to concentrate on her beloved garden. But for the irrepressible Ilse, a former Oxfordshire Senior Citizen of the Year, that would be just too easy.

"There are two things I would like to see before I go," she says after a long discussion about the many causes she has fought for over the years. "I think I would like to live long enough to see prostitution decriminalised to get rid of the pimps. And I would like pot decriminalised as well. I tried it once when I was invited to one of my son's parties and it is nothing really. You would get rid of the dealers by decriminalising it."

A 90-year-old woman with a liberal attitude to drugs is either shocking or rather refreshing, depending on which side of the fence you sit. But for those who know Ilse von Engel it will be no surprise. She's no stranger to controversy or adversity - and will give you a quick dressing down if you suggest opinions should be dictated by age. Born into a Jewish family in Berlin in 1908, Ilse was a respected mum-of-one until the Nazis came to power. Despite having an 'Arian' husband, she was hours from being taken to the death camps when she fled to Britain with only the clothes on her back in 1939.

Her husband, from whom she was later divorced, brought her son, Peter Espe, then aged six, to Britain the following year. "I was on good terms with my husband and he agreed we had to leave the country," she says. "He didn't want our son growing up a Nazi."

After spending a year in London, Ilse moved to Oxford on marrying her second husband, the eminent Keble College physicist Dr Alfred von Engel, who died in 1990.

They were overwhelmed by the kindness they were shown on their arrival and, in a sense, she has been showing her gratitude ever since.

She joined the Oxford branch of the National Council of Women in the 1950s and, among many achievements, helped persuade Oxford City Council to give women equal rights on tenancy agreements.

As chairman of the Oxford branch of the United Nations Association, she helped refugees in German displacement camps after the war. She was also a founder member of the Oxford Consumers Council, campaigning for the rights of shoppers. But it is her work with Age Concern for which she will be best remembered. Since the early 1970s, she has been organising flag days, house-to-house collections, coffee mornings and carol-singing, raising thousands of pounds in the process.

Bruce Henderson, chief officer of the Oxford branch, said: "We would not be here now if it were not for people like Ilse.

"We have had to update with modern business methods over the years but Ilse has always kept the ideals of Age Concern at the forefront of discussions with trustees. People of her generation will be sadly missed."

Ilse says she has to "give way to the 21st century" but has no intention of quitting her work for Age Concern altogether. Her main contribution these days is running regular fitness groups for pensioners at the charity's Summertown day centre.

"In spite of my age, I still teach keep fit," she says. "I do not move like a 90-year-old and that is because I have done exercise all my life.

"What people need apart from being with other people is to talk. So many people live alone all week long. If they come to my classes they can get a bit of exercise and meet people of a similar age."

Typical of Ilse's drive is her refusal to give in to Macula Disease, which attacks the retina and has left her virtually blind.

Instead, she joined the Oxford Association for the Blind and the Oxford Group of the Macula Disease Association, along with Graham Greene's widow Vivien.

"When people discover they have Macula Disease they are told, 'Sorry we cannot help you'," she said. "We help people who think life has stopped. Even though I cannot see, I still lead a full life." It is impossible to underestimate Ilse's achievements for Oxford - or her enthusiasm for life. As for her latest crusade, don't bet against her.

"I have had very little support from people in my circles," she said. "Middle-class people do not want to know about prostitution or smoking pot. But why should it be unusual for a 90-year-old to campaign for the legalisation of cannabis? I have the same brain and I think on the same lines as I did when I was young.

"I can see people thinking, 'Mrs von Engel? Are you still around?' It has been a long life but I have no intention of giving up yet."

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