Clare Richardson 

Bill Richardson obituary

Other lives: Political activist and trade unionist who fought for better housing conditions
  
  

Bill Richardson, community activist, who has died aged 93
Bill Richardson worked to fight slum landlords and protested against the building of the Westway through North Kensington, London Photograph: Public Domain

My father, Bill Richardson, who has died at the age of 93, could remember seeing marching miners during the General Strike of 1926. At 16, aware of the rise of fascism in Europe, he joined the Communist party and applied to fight with the International Brigade in the Spanish civil war. Told he was too young, instead he battled at home against Oswald Mosley's black shirts at Cable Street, east London, when they tried to foment racial hatred against the local Jewish community.

Born into a large working-class family in Acton, west London, he won an art scholarship at 14, but his parents wanted him to work, so he started in local engineering firms. As a tool-maker, he was in a reserved occupation during the second world war, working at Napier and Son on aero-engines. He became a shop steward in the Amalgamated Engineering Union and, in his spare time, became involved with the leftwing Unity Theatre, starting backstage and subsequently acting. He remembered with pride a tour, soon after the war, to the south Wales valleys, performing in local miners' halls.

He met Hilda Davis through their shared interest in politics in 1939: she worked for the laboratories that developed films for Paramount Pictures. They married in 1946 and made their home in Notting Hill, west London.

In 1956 he left the Communist party and became a community activist working hard to fight exploitative, slum landlords, particularly Peter Rachman, who preyed on West Indian migrants settling in the area. In the mid-60s Bill helped to establish the Notting Hill People's Association, which fought for better housing conditions for working-class tenants and agitated for safe play areas for local children. With others he also protested at the brutal building of Westway through North Kensington. His activism was only possible because of the support and hard work of Hilda, who ran the home and brought up five daughters. They were both active in CND and the anti-Vietnam war movement, and defenders of the NHS.

When Bill retired from London Transport's Chiswick works, he remained active in his AUEW branch and the Transport Benevolent Fund. He also studied Chinese cookery, and read avidly, especially on science, astronomy, evolution and anthropology. He had more time to write poetry and make his beautiful, hand-painted, precision-balanced mobiles. He remained curious to the end of his days and as active as possible, supporting Stop the War and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

He is survived by Hilda, his daughters, and four grandsons.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*