23.10.2025

This son of York

Jack Conrad remembers an old India hand, a former WRP member, a printer, a layout artist and a dedicated communist partisan. Phil Railston (Kent), September 2 1942-October 17 2025

How to describe him? Cantankerous, offbeat, self-deprecating, wry, dedicated, sceptical, loyal, talented, hard-working, hard-drinking. Many other descriptions come to mind. He was a complex personality.

We first came across Phil in the aftermath of the 1984-85 miners’ Great Strike. Our faction, the Leninists of the CPGB, began Sunday seminars in London (ongoing as Online Communist Forum). From a founding core of just four comrades, we had painfully built a useful little circle: leading members of the Young Communist League, experienced CPGB cadre … and a good few amongst the Miners’ Support Committees.

It was Reg Weston who introduced Phil. Comrade Reg had been member of the ‘official’ CPGB dating back to the early 1930s - having been in the Labour Party, he was recruited by none other than R Palme Dutt. Comrade Reg went on to become a subeditor on the Daily Worker. Both comrades were local activists in north Kent (hence the cadre name). Reg lived in Higham, Phil in Rochester (on a house boat).

Cross class

So who was Phil Railston? Born in wartime York, his parents formed what might be called a cross-class alliance. His father was a clerk on the London and North Eastern Railway. His mother established, owned and ran a successful bakery, employing a good handful of workers. Both were true-blue Tories and smoked like chimneys. Even though he was underage, young Phil would join dad for a drink at the local Conservative and Unionist Club. Here he acquired a taste for good beer - in York that still means Sam, not John Smiths. Phil also became class-conscious.

It was not only the everyday snobbery, social climbing and bigotry of the Conservative Club. His parents lived in a posh(ish) estate, walled off from the council house hoi polloi. Phil began to sympathise with those at the bottom. Something reinforced by attending a minor public school as a day boy.

He shined neither in sports nor academically. Being dyslexic constituted a huge handicap, which simply got you marked down as ‘thick’ (that despite dyslexia being a recognised condition since the late 19th century). It is not that Phil developed a chip on the shoulder. But he knew that the world was not fair and could be extraordinarily cruel.

Though hardly excelling academically, he secured a place at Hull. Purportedly the student union had the country’s longest bar - a source of infinitely greater pride for our Phil than the fact that Philip Larkin ran the university library. You can guess where he spent most of his free time.

Having graduated, Phil went on to qualify as a social worker. Though trying to navigate the tortuous medical, educational and bureaucratic obstacles facing drug addicts, alcoholics, former prisoners, young kids just shown the door by their orphanage, victims of domestic abuse, the physically infirm and the mentally ill, he knew perfectly well that he could provide no more than a sticking plaster. Nonetheless, he always did his best. Without a privileged background he felt that he could easily have been one of his own clients.

Rainy season

When Phil’s parents died, he came into money. Enough to live off the interest. Especially if, as he did, he travelled abroad and lived cheaply. In those days it was possible to go overland all the way through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and south-east Asia … indeed he went all the way to Australia via Indonesia (Bali struck in particular). He worked on farms in Australia.

However, Phil spent most of his time in India. He went everywhere. The deserts of Rajasthan, the mountains of Zaskar, the lakes of Kashmir, the verdant backwaters of Kerala. The former Portuguese colony of Goa was a favourite haunt: beaches, bars and wild-growing ganja. Unlike many westerners, Phil thought nothing of staying throughout the monsoon: landslides are common, streets turn into rushing rivers and masses of poisonous snakes emerge from flooded burrows seeking dry ground. Sipping on cashew or coconut feni, Phil would be in his element. For visa renewal reasons he had to leave India every six months. That meant Nepal, Sri Lanka … and a return ticket.

What brought Phil back to Blighty was the miners’ Great Strike. Knowing no better, he joined the Workers Revolutionary Party. Up at the crack of dawn he would pick up bundles of its colour daily, The News Line, from the local railway station (a lot of the finance came from the Libyan Jamahiriya and other Arab countries). Activity was intense and unremitting. There had, after all, been an uninterrupted revolutionary situation since 1973! Not that WRP members were allowed to join the Miners’ Support Committees. That would see them mixing with the rest of the left. Intolerable for the WRP’s sectarian leadership.

Phil attended schools at the famous Red House in Derbyshire. Gerry Healy was a headline speaker. Phil did not know quite what to make of the founder-leader. Healy would begin his lectures on dialectical materialism by touching upon this or that problem facing the WRP … that made a certain sense. But then he would turn to his blackboard, where he would proceed to excitedly chalk boxes, circles and lines which denoted “being”, “non-being”, “becoming”, “cause”, “effect”, “transformation”, “absolute essence”, then “positive semblance” - all logically ending in the “sensuous stage of the cognitive process” (G Healy Studies in dialectical materialism London 1982, p45). As one abstract category developed into another, most of the audience would get hopelessly lost. Some thought it was genius at work, others Hegelised pseudo-Marxist gobbledegook … not that you could say it was Hegelised pseudo-Marxist gobbledegook out loud.

But the latent strains in the WRP were about to explode. The miners had been defeated, exhausted members drifted away in droves and sales of News Line plummeted … meanwhile the WRP denied any defeat and insisted that revolution was still just around the corner (echoed by Alan Woods and today’s Revolutionary Communist Party).

Phil could tell that something was seriously amiss. Little groups of core leaders huddled together, along with their closest confidants. Shella Torrence and Richard Price, Gerry Healy and Corin and Venessa Redgrave, Tony Banda and Cliff Slaughter, etc. Then - bang - October 1985. Healy was expelled. For a brief moment there were two versions of News Line. One with a red price star, the other with a white price star, each carrying on as if it were business as usual. Soon Healy was charged with the sexual abuse of at least 26 female comrades. The WRP splits proceeded to split and split again till they were mere dust.

For a short while Phil was a member of Richard Price’s group. But not for long … he got to know Reg Weston and then our CPGB faction. From then on it was Phil Kent and no looking back.

Our ranks

He fought against the poll tax. Going to prison … for days at a time. There he met all kinds of people, including a convicted murderer. Phil thought he was a nice bloke.

He stood in solidarity with the Timex strikers in Dundee. The company sacked 340, mainly female, workers, because of their refusal to take a savage pay cut. Down in London, Phil was arrested and put on trial for conspiracy. Supposedly he had intended to torch one of the company’s offices. Actually the idea was to paint slogans. Along with another CPGB member and two CPGB supporters, that could have meant eight years each. The supporters wobbled and could easily have caved. However, our legal team, advised by Anne McShane, put up an unashamedly political defence … the jury found them not guilty. Vindication.

Phil attended our schools in Corfu, Crete, Andros, Bulgaria and Catalonia. He also joined our newly established print shop. Mastering the somewhat quirky workings of our aged Komori proved well within his grasp. However, as we slowly ran the Komori into the ground, it became ever more difficult to operate. One of my enduring memories is of Phil standing atop of the machine furiously pulling plugs and pouring ink and water … all the while loudly swearing and cursing at the damned thing.

It needed a radical - and expensive - overhaul. Quality, which was never good, got worse and worse. Myself and Phil were amongst those who urged a planned transition to getting the Weekly Worker printed commercially - that despite the increased costs. We were in a minority (there were those who wanted to abandon print altogether). When the Komori finally conked out, the two of us were quietly glad.

Initially, costs went sky-high. But soon, as we could have done in the first place, we negotiated a good deal. Moreover, readers came up with the extra money … and the quality greatly improved. A win-win result.

Next, Phil turned his hand to layout. I must admit my undying admiration at the speed with which he took to it. A duck unto water. Except, of course, he had never done anything like it before … and, Christ, he was getting old.

Night shifts

At first layout meant working a 12-14 hour night shift alongside myself, Peter Manson and maybe one of his trainees ... we would then sleep over or return to the office in the late afternoon to join in with collating, franking and bagging the paper ready for delivery from Mount Pleasant. Taxing. After that it was fish and chips and most of our little team headed off to the pub, usually the Pembury, for a well-deserved pint or three (and with him a Dictador rum finisher).

We did more than drink. Besides talking politics, the paper and relevant technical problems, we worked on my books. Phil created the maps included in Fantastic reality. We also clocked, nodded at and privately made gentle fun of the occasional other lefty drinkers … John Rees, Lindsey German, Martin Smith, Peter Taaffe, Clare Doyle.

The Covid lockdown saw us go over to editing and layout online. Something we have stuck with. Still taxing … but much less so. But Phil was slowly losing it. He would get into a silly huff over nothing … true, not for more than five minutes. We found a replacement … but only just in the nick of time. Frankly, we have always operated on a wing and a prayer … which means that, like Icarus, we could still easily come crashing down to earth.

Not that Phil ever gave up. He continued to collate and bag the paper ready for mailing … and go for a well-deserved pint - but now usually two, not three (and no Dictador).

Over the last year or so Phil lived in a care home. Comrades visited him and he instantly recognised them. He could effortlessly chat on about York, Hull, India, the WRP, Reg Weston, the CPGB and the Weekly Worker … it was the present that eluded him.

Throughout later life his comrade landlady, Gaby Rubin, provided unstinting support. In return Phil would take her weird, half-crazy rescue dogs for long walks … including to our offices. Toby would chew wires, run circles and fart. Cookie was no less amusing and loveable.

Every CPGB comrade who knew Phil will have their own particular anecdote. Everyone liked him. The same goes for everyone I know who came across him. Not that Phil was a Zelig. He would argue his corner with determination … including with me. When he thought I was wrong, he said so - and in no uncertain terms.

Phil was a fine communist and a fine human being. Long may he be remembered.