Obituary: Pat Kilgallon (2018)

Obituary from the May 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have to report the death of Pat Kilgallon at the age of 91 after a long and debilitating illness. Pat came from a family of political activists and trades unionists, her grandfather was the agent for the first ILP candidate in the North East who also refused to fight in the First World War. Pat joined the Newcastle Branch of the Socialist Party in April 1994, having left the Labour Party earlier in that year.

Pat came into contact with the Party in the early 1980s a time when she was a Labour councillor on North Tyneside Council and when she was also active in arranging food collections and other types of support for the families of striking miners. She was also part of the group of councillors that refused to set a budget in 1985. It was the failure of this and similar actions that began her realisation that capitalism could not be reformed and led to her journey towards joining the Socialist Party.

Her activity in the Party, especially in later years was hampered by her age and ill health, however she never missed an opportunity to put forward the socialist case to any that would listen and she had recently been involved in distributing union application forms to the un-unionised home carers who supported her to live in her own home.

T. K.