A Big Thank You! (1972)

Party News from the August 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain has always been fortunate in the continual readiness of members to work for years at behind-the-scenes jobs: Branch secretaries and treasurers and members of committees, who have carried out their unspectacular work with quiet efficiency for as long as many of us remember.

Comrade Phyllis George has just given up the secretaryship of the Socialist Standard Production Committee after twenty-seven years. She began helping the old Editorial Committee near the end of the war, and her home became —and remained—the Committee’s regular meeting-place. Acquiring a thorough knowledge of how the Socialist Standard was produced, she was able to tidy-up every loose end and take a heavy burden of correspondence and endless minor details from the Committee members. In the nineteen-fifties she compiled a regular page of Party news for the Socialist Standard.

The Socialist Standard's debt to Comrade George is considerable, but its editors over the years have a special one for her hospitality. Every month her sitting-room was filled with spread-out papers and cigarette smoke and debate, while she supplied continual cups of coffee as well as unfailing stability and competence. Much as we regret her retirement, the rest is well deserved; and our gratitude extends to her husband Arthur, who put up with it cheerfully.

All who have served on or helped the Committee during those twenty-seven years join in expressing our appreciation: thank you, Phyllis. We hope that both the Comrades George will continue to take part in the life of the Party for a long time to come.