27.10.2010

Farewell to Ted

Robbie Rix reports that donations to our fighting fund totalled a mere £80 last week

Along with a number of older CPGB comrades, I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of comrade Ted Rowlands of Bishop Auckland at the age of 93 (see ‘Red Ted RIP’, Letters).

Comrade Rowlands gave stalwart support to this paper for the best part of three decades - selling and promoting it and, without fail, providing us with much needed regular finance in the shape of a monthly cheque. Readers may have become familiar with the phrase, “TR (£60)”, in this column over the years and his cheque was inevitably accompanied by a covering note carrying the modest byline, “For papers and fund”.

Ted used to attend the CPGB’s Communist University in the days when it was held abroad. I remember one year, when he was well into his 70s, how, together with some rather more youthful comrades, he hired a bicycle for a day of light exercise in the Corfu hills.

As a member of the Socialist Labour Party, Ted was one of the few CPGB supporters able to sell the Weekly Worker openly in his SLP branch, despite the fact that “supporters” of “other political organisations” were barred from Arthur Scargill’s party and liable to summary expulsion at the whim of the ‘great leader’. But they didn’t touch Ted.

In view of his passing, it seems petty to mention a comparatively minor setback suffered by our paper last week, when donations to our fighting fund totalled a mere £80. Although there were 10,029 online readers, none of them contributed. Which means we are an agonising £4 short of our £1,125 target for October. Please use PayPal or send cheques to get to us by noon on Monday November 1 - in keeping with the spirit and practice of comrade Ted Rowlands.