Rob Irving

The early 90s in Prague were heady days. When I arrived, the Czech economy was 96% state-owned, and the Prime Minister at the time, Vaclav Klaus, had devised a privatization plan to get most Czech companies into private hands as quickly as possible.

In 1981 my sister, Ailsa Irving, who has died aged 82, placed a notice in the personal columns of the Guardian proposing the creation of a self-help group for people with endometriosis, a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes. The response to the idea was so positive that Ailsa went ahead and set up the UK Endometriosis Society that same year, and it eventually became the national charity Endometriosis UK.