Rachel Foakes obituary

My friend Rachel Foakes, who has died unexpectedly aged 53, was a writer of education books, a committed activist and a Labour town councillor.

Over the course of her 30-year career, Rachel wrote more than 80 books, reaching tens of thousands of students of English worldwide. Her graded readers ranged across all age groups and covered non-fiction as well as retellings of modern and classic works, and included White Fang (2008), Mulan (2017) and The Life and Diaries of Anne Frank (2018), all winners of the ERF (Extensive Reading Foundation) Language Learner Literature award.

In 2014, she became the series editor of the Oxford Bookworms Library. In a recent article, she wrote of the pleasures of educational books – of having a job that she felt had real “value”. She in turn was valued by her readers: she was guest speaker at the City of Westminster’s Libraries Six Book Challenge in 2015.

Born in Radlett, Hertfordshire, to Jennetta (nee Kiddle), a secretary in the Foreign Office, and Stuart Bladon, a motoring journalist, Rachel attended North London Collegiate school and then Somerville College, Oxford, where she studied modern history (1987-90). There she developed her passion for the written word as news editor of Cherwell, the student newspaper. She was sporty as well as cerebral, playing lacrosse for the Swifts, the university’s second team.

Fluent in French, Rachel headed to Grenoble after Oxford to teach English, before returning to the UK to start a career in book publishing at Usborne Books and then at Heinemann in their English Language Teaching (ELT) Division. Rachel married Andrew Foakes in 1996 and they spent three years in Hong Kong, where he taught and she established herself as a freelance commissioning and managing editor, and together they travelled extensively in south-east Asia.

In 2016, the family, including their three children, Grace, Anna and Frank, moved to Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire. Rachel believed deeply in being active in her community, as she demonstrated when Covid-19 hit by setting up a “help your neighbour” scheme and volunteering as a vaccinator.

In 2021, she was elected to the town council and a year later became its deputy mayor. She combined these duties – producing the council newsletter and setting up Saturday surgeries for residents – with volunteering as a teacher to Ukrainian families and the busy demands of family life and a full-time career. Throughout her life, she combined practical action with a deep, caring intelligence.

She is survived by Andrew and their children, and by her mother. Rachel’s father died shortly after her.