An unlikely beginning

We have all lost a comrade and many of us have also lost a friend. My partner and my eldest daughter were both devastated by the untimely death of John, who my daughter stills calls “Uncle John” from all the occasions mostly at Marxism where he completely over-indulged her.

The circumstances of my first meeting with John were not how a friendship would normally start.

I was a shop steward in a fairly large engineering works in Havant, close to Portsmouth. This was the mid-1970s and there were a lot of strikes taking place.

We were all subject to the “Social Contract” agreed between Harold Wilson’s Labour government and the TUC. This agreement introduced “Annual Pay Awards”, and this would be your lot until the next round of pay bargaining. Prior to this we could negotiate a pay rise if we thought we could get one and to offset the high rate of inflation, especially in a highly unionised workplace such as ours.

We were taking action over management attempts to lower the rates for “piece rate workers” mostly fitters and turners and machine operators.

We decided that we had a much better chance of winning this dispute if instead of walking out on strike we occupied the factory and stop management from moving out completed units. This would deprive them of income.

On the second day of the occupation, a group of people including John appeared at the factory gates, asking if they could come in and talk to the workers taking action and sell papers.

I was on the gates, so I went to ask the convenor if this would be OK. Our convenor was a bloody good trade unionist and one of the most militant workers I had met. He was also a member of the Communist Party.

I remember to this day his response. “Go and tell that bunch of Trotskyist splitters to fuck off”. I went and simply said “No”. I did take a paper. As a result of reading it, I went to the town centre on the Saturday after the occupation to seek out these “Trotskyist Splitters”.

I wish I could say I joined the party there and then, but like a lot of other young socialists and trade unionists at the time I was still convinced that we could turn the Labour Party to the left.

I left Portsmouth shortly after this and did not return until the 1980s. I had by then left the Labour Party. I was also completely disillusioned with the notion of revolutionary organisation, because of a few years as an entryist with the Militant tendency in both Brighton and North Wales.

I was recruited to the SWP eventually by Huw Williams and Jon Woods, who would just not leave me alone. John was an absolute rock. Although the busiest person in the branch, he always had time for me and other members.

I eventually found myself working in the same building as John and got the opportunity to talk with him more often. I was also a trade union rep again and secretary of the local Trades Council, helping to organise solidarity actions and local demos

I owned up to not being able to understand all the arguments and debates going on within Marxist organisations. John would explain in the easiest language and sometimes I understood what it was that these arguments were about. But something John said to me that I’ll never forget— “It’s OK because you are an active militant worker”.