We can today announce the inaugural winner of The Times/Sternberg Active Life award for a person over the age of 70. The award is for those who refuse to think that pensionable age should herald a quiet life. This award is designed as a celebration of old age because, as Maurice Chevalier once said, consider the alternative.

From the distinguished group of candidates the judges have awarded the title to Helen Bamber. Born in London to parents of Polish Jewish extraction, she was appointed, at the age of 20, to one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She remained in Germany for two years, negotiating the evacuation to Switzerland of a group of survivors suffering from tuberculosis.

On her return to England in 1947 Mrs Bamber was appointed to the Committee for the Care of Young Children from Concentration Camps. In 1961, she joined Amnesty International and became chairman of the first British group. The incidents of torture whom she saw inspired her to set up the Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture to provide long-term care to patients. This was exactly as she qualified for her pension. Then, in April 2005, at the age of 80, she established the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support to people who had suffered human rights violations.

For her dedication to the care and counselling of holocaust survivors and for her work with the victims of torture, Mrs Bamber exemplifies Thoreau's maxim that none are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. The prestige of this new award is established by the very fact of Helen Bamber being its first recipient.