A luncheon was held yesterday to present Mrs Helen Bamber with the first Times/Sternberg Active Life award. The award was presented by the Editor of The Times, James Harding, and Sir Sigmund Sternberg, founder of the Three Faiths Forum.

The award was established to honour the older person who, in the opinion of the public, has done most for society and for good causes in old age.

Born in London to parents of Polish Jewish extraction, Helen Bamber at the age of 20 joined one of the first rehabilitation teams to enter Bergen-Belsen. 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 victims 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 just as she qualified for her pension. 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.

Among those present at the lunch were: David Bamber, Helen Bamber’s son; Lady Sternberg, Rosie Winterton, MP, Minister of State for Pensions and the Ageing Society; Michael Sternberg, QC; Noam Tamir, the Healthcare Learning Company; Robert Perlman, CRU Group and trustee of the Charity Commission; Sir John Ritblat, a Times/Sternberg award judge and chairman of the Real Estate Asset Management Advisory Board at Delancey; Ruth Turner, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation; Mark Ebert, Three Faiths Forum; Sir Ian Mills, Age Exchange; Jane Reed, Times Newspapers; Anne Spackman, comment editor, The Times; Daniel Finkelstein, chief leader writer, The Times; Anoushka Healy, assistant editor, strategy & development, The Times; Baroness Scotland of Asthal, a Times/Sternberg award judge and Attorney General.