Obituary: Cyril May (2003)

Obituary from the November 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cyril May, who was the Party's Central Organiser for many years, died last month. He joined Paddington branch in 1940 after listening to Party speakers in Hyde Park where he was later to himself become a regular speaker. Refusing to be conscripted to kill fellow workers in the war then going on, he was sent to work on the land.

He was one of the best Central Organisers that the Party has had, travelling the country to speak at meetings and encourage members to form groups and branches, organising meetings and rallies, arranging for leaflets and socialist literature to be available for demonstrations such as the CND marches of the 1960s, acting as election agent, rushing bundles of Socialist Standards to Euston station for dispatch to provincial branches; you name it, he did it — except for serving on the executive committee since he preferred to concentrate on the Party's front-line activity of putting over the case for socialism.

He was an impressive indoor and outdoor speaker, putting over the case in a persuasive, non-aggressive way, addressing the audience as "Men and Women" (which raised a few eyebrows since the traditional form was "Fellow Workers:! For many years he also acted as secretary of the Paddington branch, but in the 1970s set out to organise another new branch, in Hampstead.

Later, he transferred to North West London branch. Unfortunately, this was one of two branches that came into conflict with the rest of the Party for deliberately and repeatedly refusing to apply a Conference resolution that was later confirmed by a poll of the whole membership. In the end, in 1991. after two further Party polls, most of the members of the two branches were expelled, a majority of members considering that internal Parry democracy was a cardinal socialist principle that overrode ail other considerations including past service to the cause of Socialism. Sadly, the last ten or so years of his political life were spent, as part of a group of individuals who, rather ludicrously, claimed to be us trying to undermine the party for which he had done so much work.

Blogger's Notes:

The May 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard has a picture of Cyril May addressing a SPGB meeting. Also of interest is an issue of The Western Socialist dating from 1970 which carries the transcript of an interview with Cyril May that was conducted by Arlene Francis of WOR-AM, a local New York radio station.