Socialist Party Meetings (2001)

Party News from the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Edinburgh Branch Day School

Against all war!

Public Meeting and discussion, Saturday 10th November,

Quaker Meeting House, Victoria Terrace, Grassmarket, Edinburgh.

Afghanistan - Another War For Oil? Speaker: Brian Gardner (Edinburgh), 4pm.

From Hitler to bin Laden - how do you defeat terrorism? Speaker: Richard Donnelly (Glasgow), 5pm.

Questions and Discussion.

Capital study group

The next meeting will be held on Saturday, 1 December 2001 4pm, Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street London (nearest tube: Clapham North). For more details, or if you would like to receive minutes or discussion papers,  please write to stuart_commie@yahoo.co.uk, Stuart Watkins, 173 Archway Road, London, N6 5BL. Tbel: 07785 106 XXX.

Rambles

Walk 1: Hampton Court and Bushey parks. Distance 5 miles. Pub stop for lunch. Meeting place: Hampton Court station, Sunday 4 November, 11am.

Walk 2: Cassiobury park, near Watford. Distance 7 miles. Pub stop for lunch. Meeting place: Watford Underground station (Metropolitan line), Sunday 9 December, 11am.

Enfield and Haringey Branch

Real democracy — local to global

Informal discussion. Thursday, 22 November at 8pm. Angel Community Centre, Raynham Road, Edmonton, N18.

Manchester Branch

Peter Kropotkin: Anarchist and Explorer

Monday, 26 November at 8pm, Hare and Hounds, Shadehill, City Centre. 

Speaker: Carl Pinel

London Sunday evening meetings

Lessons of the German Revolution 1918

Sunday, 25 November at 6.30pm, at Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, nearest tube Clapham North.

Speaker: Bill Martin

London Day School

Revolutionary socialism versus left-wing reformism - an historical account

Saturday, 17 November at Friends House, Euston (just over the road from Euston mainline station), from 10.30 to 4.30, with break for refreshments.

10.30-11 am: Welcome and tea or coffee

11-12.15: Labouring in vain  — a brief history of Labour Party reformism. Speaker: Darren O'Neil.

12.15-1.15: Lunch

1.15-2.30: Leninism in practice — the Russian Revolution. Speaker: Robert Worden.

2.45-4.30: The Socialist Party — a history of no compromise. Speaker: Richard Donnelly.

Blogger's Note:

Bill Martin's talk on the Lessons of the German Revolution 1918 is available as an audio recording on the SPGB's website.

SPGB Meetings (1995)

Party News from the June 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1990)

Party News from the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

SPGB Meetings (1990)

Party News from the August 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Obituary: John Lee (2023)

Obituary from the June 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Lee, an active member of the Party for many decades, died in April at the age of 92. He joined the old Tottenham branch in 1949 as a teenager and was involved in its various successor branches. He worked as a clerical officer in Customs and Excise, his only job and it was whilst working there that he heard our speakers at Tower Hill. He managed to avoid National Service about this time because of defective eyesight.

In the ‘60s he was active on our Executive and Publicity Committees. He was a very regular attendee at branch meetings, apart from during a period when he was in hospital for a detached retina operation, and later, in 1980, when he took himself off for a week’s touring holiday in Italy.

In the Party, after retirement, he picked up the basics of computer work, and for years he dealt with general enquiries and requests for the Socialist Standard, working at our Head Office on a weekly basis until a few years ago. He was always ready to leaflet demonstrations or help out at a branch street stall. A quiet but thoughtful man, he was well read. He admitted that he was somewhat terrified of getting up to address an audience, which he sometimes had to do when answering questions about a Committee report to Party Conference. Never a speaker nor a writer, he would only chip in on a discussion if he felt he had something relevant to contribute, and then typically only briefly. The Party has lost a long-serving and hard-working stalwart.

Obituary: Stanley Malyon (1987)

Obituary from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Haringey and Enfield branch were saddened to learn of the death, at the beginning of August at the age of 74, of Stan Malyon, an active branch member for the past twenty years. Stan, who worked as an insurance agent before he retired, became a convinced socialist before the war and had originally joined the Party in 1938 He rejoined in the 1960s but had always retained his socialist convictions and attitude to life. Most of his work for the Party was at branch level but he was also frequently a Conference delegate and served for a while as the Party's Assistant Treasurer,

We extend our sympathy to his son, his daughter and other relatives and friends. In accordance with his own expressed wish, a Party member delivered a short address at a non-religious ceremony at Kingston crematorium attended by members of his family and Party members,

Obituary: Bill Williams (1997)

Obituary from the February 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bill joined the old Palmers Green branch in 1953, having moved to London from north Wales. From an early age he had been interested in science and technology, building his own reflecting telescope and even importing magazines on rocket technology from the USA during the Second World War!

He had been plagued by ill-health for most of his life, due to TB and aggravated by smoking, starting the habit years before it had been universally recognised as potentially dangerous. Although this limited his physical activity, as a car-owner he was able to act as "wheels" for branch members to carry out activities in the 50s and 60s.

His main profession was as a draughtsman in the Civil Service and he was active as a member in their union, DATA. It was at this time that, because of his gaunt appearance, he was known as "The Thin Man".

He was keenly interested in the UFO phenomenon and related subjects, but managed to keep his feet firmly on the ground as far as his materialist understanding of the world was concerned. During the 50s and 60s he took an active part in the theoretical investigation of crisis theory in political economy and in studying the emergence of civilisations in the ancient Near East. As far as he was able Bill was an active member of the branch, and his knowledge of scientific and technological developments was of much value in branch discussions and meetings.

When eventually his health prevented him from working, he was able to escape from wage slavery, in so far as not being beholden to an employer. This situation left him with a modest income. Even by the limitations imposed by capitalism Bill could not have been said to have lived his life to the full, choosing an abstemious existence rather than living for the day. He lived the last 20 years of his life with only one lung and had to be extremely careful about not infecting his remaining one. He was, however, able to attend the branch up to a few weeks before his death.

Julian Vein

Obituary: Ken Leggett (1994)

Obituary from the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have just learned of the death of our Comrade Ken Leggett of Enfield & Haringey Branch.

Ken joined the Party relatively late in life in 1968 at the age of 42 after reading an election leaflet put through his letter-box in the 1967 GLC elections. But, many years before, he had already taken a stance against one of the worst effects of capitalism by registering as a conscientious objector during the Second World War. one of the tasks he was given being to look after German POWs.

Ken was an amateur (tenor) singer and had a jovial and irreverent nature. He was at one time Branch Treasurer in the days when he was able to be active. In later years due to having to work long hours his activities were curtailed somewhat and the onset of arthritis finally put an end to this, making it almost impossible even to attend the Branch.

Ken took belated retirement last year and moved with his partner from London to Sussex to enjoy a well-earned rest.

Julian Vein

Obituary:Jack Bradley (2010)

Obituary from the December 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to announce the death of Jack Bradley, aged 85, at his home on 7 November.

Jack joined the party in 1949. Before that he had come across the works of Marx and Engels, not as you might expect in the bookshops in Charing Cross Road in London, but whilst serving with the RAF in India towards the end of World War Two. He used to recall how British troops in India were incensed when at the end of the war they were told that strong armed forces would have to be maintained to fight the next war.

Like many of his generation he was expecting great things from the new Labour government and joined the Labour Party, but he was particularly disappointed to learn that the former owners of the newly-nationalised industries were not being given one-off payments, but rather government bonds, which didn’t change their privileged positions.

Jack was an active member until a few years ago, particularly in publicity where he favoured emphasising the “one world” nature of socialism. The dangers of nuclear weapons was one of his special interests. In 1954 when the Japanese tuna fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon 5) was contaminated by nuclear fallout from a US atom bomb test in 1954, Jack and other members of the then Wood Green & Hornsey Branch wrote to the local paper of the nearest town to the incident offering their sympathy. Residents wrote to the Hornsey Journal to thank the branch for their letter. The editor, however, unjustly suspected some sort of put-up job and only made a guarded reference to the matter.

He always kept his eyes open for political ideas which were close to ours like those of the French ex-Trotskyists of Socialisme ou Barbarie and the German ex-Trotskyists of Contemporary Issues, alerting other members that these had come round to the view that Russia was state-capitalist. Murray Bookchin (under various pseudonyms) was associated with this latter group for a time and Jack circulated his articles on how capitalism was destroying the world’s ecology long before the Green Party was heard of. He himself liked to describe socialism as “one green world”.

He was a collector of books and pamphlets on socialism and related subjects, and had several rooms full of them. He also amassed a collection of leaflets and documents of leftwing political organisations, some of which they might have preferred to forget. He did considerable research to see if the 17th century communist Gerrard Winstanley could have had any knowledge of Thomas More’s Utopia via the publisher of a contemporary re-edition of its English translation. Unfortunately none of this original research was ever published.

He didn’t fly aircraft when he was in the RAF, but in later years he obtained a pilot’s licence for light aircraft—he had contempt for airliners, describing them as “flying computers”.

Until a few years ago, he was a regular attendee at Enfield & Haringey branch meetings, but because of his slight build and age, he began to feel more and more apprehensive about venturing out at night, although he would still attend when he was able to get a lift from a member. His last job was for Westminster Council where he became a night duty officer.

We offer our condolences to his daughter, Alyson.

Julian Vein