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Alan Walter speaking at a Defend Council Housing conference |
A friend, a father... and a fighter for tenants’ rights
WITH a bow and arrow aimed at fat-cat businesses and penny-pinching politicians – and a beat-up car with a large megaphone – Alan Walter was once cast as the ‘Robin Hood of council housing’.
While he was always reluctant to be portrayed as a hero, his sudden death from a suspected heart attack on Saturday night has left campaigners who fight for the rights of council tenants mourning the loss of one of their most admired and astute leaders.
Candy Udwin, the 51-year-old’s former partner and mother of their son, Joe, said: “He knew there were no magic wands and that a revolution wouldn’t happen overnight, but he encouraged people to stand up for themselves. He showed people could make a difference if they had collective strength.”
She met Mr Walter when he was in his late teens at a protest in a squat in Tolmers Square, off Drummond Street, Euston, at the end of the 1970s.
“The campaign was more than just about a squat: he got tenants and trade unions involved against a property speculator,” said Ms Udwin. “The issue of social housing became his whole life.”
The couple were later housed at the Peckwater estate in Kentish Town, where Mr Walter lived for the rest of his life. He worked for the council on the boiler repair team in the 1980s – organising a strike for improved working conditions – and later as a BT engineer.
Outside work, he defied two serious back injuries which left him in constant pain. Sometimes he would appear at meetings despite his wincing discomfort, lying with his back pressed up against the floor. He even appeared in this position at a High Court hearing, determined not to miss a judicial review over the future of Camden’s homes.
Resolute, sometimes bloody-minded, as a chief organiser of the pressure group Defend Council Housing he pressed the importance of good social housing right to the top of the political agenda, persevering when nobody seemed to be listening.
At the heart of it all, he believed in the basic principle that housing should be run by local authorities which are ultimately answerable to voters. In the hands of private companies, he warned, tenants risked losing their democratic say over the way their homes were run.
Over 30 years, he helped organise and led a series of campaigns against council and government initiatives paving the way towards privatisation.
“He used to joke that he had a copy of Time Out, which was then a more radical paper, confiscated at school and that had taught him to stand up,” Ms Udwin said. “As a teenager he knew he had to fight back and that it was a collective struggle. He had been involved in the National Union of Schoolchildren.”
An active member of the Socialist Workers Party, he unsuccessfully stood for election as a councillor but probably gained more influence outside of the council chamber.
Most recently, he was one of the leaders of the tenants’ revolt which helped sink council plans to hive off Camden’s entire housing stock to a newly-formed independent company.
Lesley Carty, one of his DCH colleagues on that campaign, said: “Alan always led from the front, and however much those of us around him felt driven by him he always drove himself harder. He channelled phenomenal emotional energy into striving to make the world a better place. Despite the impossible demands he placed on himself he always found time to encourage and enable others.”
Mr Walter looked beyond the battlefield in Camden. He worked closely with MPs and often wrote for newspapers on the threats to council housing. An expert in his field, he was named by industry magazines as one of the issue’s most influential speakers.
Even those who regarded him as a thorn in their side – the councillors he stalked at the Town Hall or the tenant leaders elsewhere in Camden who did not always agree with his strategy – could not help but be impressed by his conviction.
Current Lib Dem housing chief Councillor Chris Naylor said Mr Walter’s commitment to tenants always “shone though” – even if the pair didn’t always agree.
Mr Walter worked round the clock, almost to the point of obsession and in a week of mourning it has been mentioned several times that his death was so untimely, as he had only recently seen the fight for more and better council housing appear to make an impact at the height of government.
Ms Udwin said: “I think he was quite excited about the opportunities and possibilities for council housing and that the recession had shown that using market forces in everything did not work.”
There were other fights too: he had a role in the campaign to keep Prince of Wales Baths open. A particular bugbear was the lack of youth services and he was always concerned that disaffected teenagers were not being heard.
He was dismayed to find himself revisiting campaigns of the past in the last few years as he once again argued for more youth clubs and apprenticeships in the wake of a series of teen murders.
Mr Walter was also known for his opposition to the BNP, on at least one occasion fighting fascists on his own estate as his front door was vandalised. Whether politicians agreed with his opposition to right-to-buy or privatisation, his bravery in the fight against the Far Right was celebrated.
Ms Udwin said: “He was a friend, a father and a fighter.”
He leaves a partner, Anne Drinkell, and son Joe.
Brilliant exponent of people politics
ALAN Walter will be sadly missed in Camden and all over the country, wherever the fight for better housing for the people goes on, writes Austin Mitchell.
In an age when politics is being handed to focus groups, spin doctors and political consultants, Alan was a brilliant exponent of people politics and a superb organiser of the powerful national campaign for council housing.
This was the issue Labour preferred to forget in its rush to push councils out of housing and privatise the stock. Alan saw that there was no better way of improving the lot of the people than good housing, in mixed communities, run by accountable councils. He devoted all his efforts to fighting for it.
The fight began in Camden but transferred to the national stage, which was where I began to work with him, first on Daylight Robbery, which eventually stopped government taking money from council tenants to pay the housing benefit of the poorest. Then Defend Council Housing campaigned against transfers and to get the big new building and regeneration drive Britain and the councils need.
Alan made council housing a major issue, put it on the parliamentary and the national stage and organised support from trade unions and tenants all over the country.
He was the organiser of victory because his death comes just at the moment when the campaign has got the government committed to letting councils build, though it’s not yet providing enough money for the big build the nation needs.
Sadly, Alan won’t be here to organise that one last heave which will make council housing central once again. We’ll miss him.
Definitely an unsung hero
ALAN Walter’s death comes as a real shock because he and I were together at a Defend Council Housing hearing at the House of Commons only 10 days ago, writes Frank Dobson.
He will certainly be missed, not just in Camden but nationally. He put a huge amount of energy and thought into helping organise the campaign for decent council housing in every part of the country.
I first encountered Alan when he was working for the council and involved in a boiler maintenance strike, which I didn’t support and which was overcome by a tenants’ revolt. Alan remained committed over the years to council housing and that joint belief brought us together and I came to appreciate his good points.
I always admired the way he overcame severe back pain problems and didn’t seem to allow them to prevent him from campaigning. He was definitely an unsung hero.
What we advocated together really went out of fashion but his sad death comes just as the lunacy of the current housing situation has been shown up.
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