By John Pickard
It is with great sadness that we learned about the death of Andy Fenwick, a life-long socialist and trade union activist, and a member of Worcester South Labour Party, at the age of 67. Andy had been in poor health for some time, but his passing nonetheless came suddenly and was a shock to those who knew him.
I knew Andy from his days as a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists in Stockton on Tees in the late 1970s. His Constituency Labour Party was then dominated by the right wing, with Bill Rogers the ‘Labour’ MP. Andy was a constant thorn in Bill Rogers’ side, until Rogers finally gave up the party, becoming one of the original ‘Gang of Four’ who defected from Labour to form the SDLP.
Andy was a member of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, then the main steel union, and he was active in the steel strike of 1980. That strike came fairly early on in Thatcher’s Premiership and it was in many ways a trial run for attacks to come on other unions and workplaces jobs.
The picture at the top shows Andy on picket duty on the right, wearing his large motor-cycle gauntlets. Typically, as well as picketing the steelworks itself, ISTC members would go to the small Teesside docks where steel was being imported. As well as doing his stints on picket duty, Andy helped produce a local steelworkers’ bulletin, to give out at pickets and in the broader movement.
Andy at that time didn’t have a beard, but as the photo above shows, he did have long, flowing blond hair, and as another Militant comrade, Bill Hopwood, described him, “he could easily have passed for a Viking.”
Andy played an active role in building the LPYS
Andy was a natural militant and was soon won over to the Marxist ideas of the newspaper of that name, becoming an active seller and contributor for the next decade. He played an active role in the development of the Labour Party Young Socialists not only in Stockton, but in the wider Teesside and South Durham area and he was well known in the whole Northern Region.
Andy was in many ways a gentle bloke, but when it came to political issues, he didn’t take prisoners. Bill Hopwood describes how one Saturday while the local Young Socialists had a leaflet stall on Stockton High Street, a police officer accused Andy of blocking the pavement. “Andy wouldn’t back down on his democratic rights”, Bill said “and the officer charged him with obstruction”.
The Young Socialists launched a campaign and took on the case, Andy pointing out in court that Stockton had the widest High Street in England, so he couldn’t possibly have blocked it. Nonetheless, the magistrate still sided with the policeman and Andy was duly fined.
This was at a time when Teesside was dominated by heavy industry – particularly chemicals and steel – but when the industries all started closing down, things began to change. Meantime, in 1981, Andy and Maggie were married and they lived for a time in Teesside. But with the steel industry gone, Andy had to become a student again, going to Sunderland Poly to get a qualification in Public Administration and he began to work in that field for the NHS. He later retrained as a computer programmer and it was for that reason that he and Maggie eventually moved for work in Worcester area.
One of the original founders of Left Horizons
When the Militant tendency had split, in the early 1990s, Andy’s sympathies had always lain with the perspectives and ideas of Ted Grant, so in the latter years, he became a supporter of Socialist Appeal. But like other workers and ex-workers, he felt excluded by its ultra-leftism and its orientation towards students after 2014. Andy can be said, therefore, to have been one of the original founders of Left Horizons, supporting the website and its publications from the very beginning. It was, as he saw it, in the best traditions of Ted Grant and the old Militant.
When it came to hard political donkey work, Andy was no slouch. It was only four years ago at the Durham Miners’ Gala that Andy and Maggie helped to distribute hundreds of copies of a Left Horizons Gala special broadsheet, on what was probably one of the hottest days of that Summer. It couldn’t have done his health a lot of good, but he stuck at it. Even during his most recent period of illness, he did his utmost to attend Left Horizons Zoom meetings and discussions.
A materialist and an atheist to the end
Andy was a regular attendee and contributor to Zoom discussions and a regular writer for the website, his most recent article only a couple of months ago. If you do a search on the website, you will find a wide variety of articles by Andy, from ‘socialist realism’ in cinema, to ‘what is socialism’, and what turned out to be a very popular review of JB Priestley’s play, An Inspector Calls.
When he wrote and spoke, he had had a knack of illustrating sometimes profound political arguments by a reference to an event or an anecdote. He died a materialist and an atheist. A week before he died, he talked with me on the phone about wanting to make sure that his funeral didn’t have “God brought into it”.
Andy was popular and was well-liked by everyone who knew him. He was an all-round good bloke and a loyal activist without a malicious bone in his body. You can tell that by the anecdotes and the many messages to Maggie posted on Facebook. We extend our warmest condolences to Maggie, Gary, and the whole family, as well as to his many friends.
