Personal Life
Rayner met her husband Desmond ("Des") Rayner at Maccabi in Hampstead; the couple married in 1957. They had three children together: writer and food critic Jay Rayner, electronics reviewer, angling and motoring journalist Adam Rayner and events manager Amanda Rayner.
Rayner was found to have breast cancer in 2002 at the age of 71. She became a breast cancer activist in order to promote the work of the charity Cancer Research UK. She also suffered from Grave's Disease and became a patron of the British Thyroid Foundation in 1994.
Rayner never recovered from emergency intestinal surgery she received in May 2010, and died in hospital on 11 October 2010. She told her relatives she wanted her last words to be: "Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I'll come back and bloody haunt him."
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