Obituary: George Meddemmen (2004)

Obituary from the September 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are saddened to have to report the death at the end of June, at the age of 84, of our comrade George Meddemmen. He was born in Camberwell, South London, in 1920 and joined the old Bloomsbury branch in 1947. In later years he was a member of Central Branch living in Rayleigh, Essex. Comrade Meddemmen taught art and design and much of his contribution to the party was in this field, designing for instance posters and the front covers and inside illustrations of the pamphlets on war, Ireland and the miners’ strike we published in the 1980s. Asked last year to record his reminiscences he wrote: “I was on demob leave in 1946 after six year war ‘service’ in the artillery (a number of my works, painted during the Italian campaign, are in the archives of the War Museum) and thanks to Tony Turner in Hyde Park, I learned of the party and joined. Apart from my artwork, I’ve done little of note for the cause. My dizzy heights were reached in the 50s, when I chaired one of the Party’s Sunday evening public meetings in a T. U. club in Gt. Newport St, W1. (Those meetings were very well attended, before TV gripped so many people’s bottoms.)” Which shows that being a soldier is not a bar to later being receptive to socialist ideas.

Blogger's Note:

There is a recording of George Meddemmen speaking about his time during the war (and his early life) available on SoundCloud.