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MP Jeremy Corbyn speaking to Anne Drinkell; below, Alan Walter |
‘What will we do without him?’
MPs and fellow campaigners pay touching tributes to tenants’ champion, Alan Walter
HIS friends remembered how he dreamed of living by the sea with a plate of mango to munch on, but Alan Walter’s life was never so simple.
At a packed memorial service for the tenants’ leader at St Aloysius Social Club in Somers Town on Monday night, campaigners who fought alongside him said his determination to see improvements in council housing was relentless.
There were holidays in hot places and barbecues by Scottish lochs, but Mr Walter was never far from the fight, be it stalking councillors at the town hall, badgering politicians at Parliament or mobilising tenants on estates.
He died last week, aged 51, just as the government appeared to begin to take the importance of council housing seriously and with a long-fought victory in sight.
The suddenness of his death has left the hundreds who crammed inside the basement hall, decorated with trade union and Socialist Workers Party posters, in shock. They listened as a series of speakers paid tribute to his spirited leadership of the Defend Council Housing (DCH) pressure group.
Labour MP Austin Mitchell, who has railed against ‘New Labour policies’, said: “It’s a tragedy, the loss of a great man, the kind of man who would campaign for the people. I honestly don’t know what we are going to do without him.”
Fellow MPs Frank Dobson and Jeremy Corby were in the audience.
There were several references in the speeches to Mr Walter’s bloody-mindedness, but they were recalled with a smile rather than a frown. His son Joe told how Mr Walter had taught him many things, from building computers to how to complain – but lessons in how to win an argument would never be forgotten.
Joe said: “It was all or nothing with my father. I can’t think of one thing he did half-heartedly.”
There were pledges to unite to continue the fight for investment in council housing.
Meric Apak, chairman of Camden Federation of Tenants and Residents Association, vowed: “We will make sure we carry on.”
Eileen Short, from DCH, said: “He wasn’t always right. But he was right more often than he was wrong and that’s how we got things done. I do feel angry. The pressure took a toll on him. There were ministers and councillors who have talked about the importance of council housing but didn’t lift a finger to defend it. There were people who could have given time and resources so that he didn’t have to break his back.”
There were contributions also from Billy Hayes, general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, and Martin Smith, from the SWP, who said Mr Walter had “won the argument” against government attempts to get rid of council houses.
Candy Udwin, the mother of Mr Walter’s son Joe, urged people to do what Mr Walter would have done and encouraged them to join and publicise the upcoming Put People First protest march on March 28.
“Alan wouldn’t just give you one leaflet on the way out, he would have given you a pile and told you to hand them out to everyone you could,” she said.
There were recollections of Mr Walter’s campaigns against the BNP and the strike action he engineered in Camden Council’s boiler repair section in the 1980s, paving the way for workers to be better protected against asbestos.
But there were lumps in 500 throats and tears in many eyes as the room fell hushed for Anne Drinkell, Mr Walter’s partner, who gave a glimpse of another side to the campaigner, away from the placards.
“I keep expecting to hear his key in the door, his lovely warm voice,” she said. “Maybe we’d go up to the Heath, arm in arm, I’d run my fingers through his thick, black hair. I work as a community nurse, I help people with chronic diseases every day, but I couldn’t save the man I cared most about.”
Ms Drinkell added: “But I couldn’t feel that Alan didn’t have a complete life. He did get a sense of achievement from what he did.” |
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