Fifth best poker player in Britain

Jules Townshend, (later Professor of Politics at Manchester Met) Mel Doyle (later DGS of the WEA) and myself were mainly responsible for enrolling John into the Southampton branch of the IS.

John arrived at Southampton University in 1967 having originally attended Cambridge, but rejected it after a term and walked out. In between, he was able to make a living as a poker and chess player.

He modestly claimed he was the fifth best poker-player in the country at the time and was certainly good enough to be welcomed at the Victoria Sporting Club among the high rollers, even though he was a scruffy student.

Having been robbed on a visit to New York, he was able to support himself by playing chess for money against the locals and came back with more money than he took with him.

So he was very, very clever, and hungry to learn about Marxism and socialism. We were ahead of him in this, and in our shared student house in Thornhill he would drain our brains with endless questions and follow-up discussions.

You felt him coming up on the rails, ready to fly past you. We had recently set up the IS in Southampton, mainly with student members, and a few campaigns around the docks and other industries. John’s focus was on Socialism and Marxism, rather than nuts-and-bolts trade union struggles, and this is what he concentrated on throughout his life, linking these to jazz, art and culture.

Dr John Fisher, formerly Director of Research and Education, TGWU (now Unite)