Obituary: BEL DRUCE (1940-2015)
Those who attend seminars at the IHR may well Bel
Druce who until recently was a regular presence. She sadly died over the summer
and this piece by Ian Birchall serves to remind us of the life of an activist
My friend Bel Druce, who died in August as a result
of a heart attack and cancer, had been a regular participant in LSHG seminars
for the last few years. Like many LSHG members she was not a professional
historian by training, but brought to the group insights derived from her own experience
and commitments.
Bel was born in 1940. Her father was a Scottish
traindriver and, quite naturally at that time, a trade unionist. Her mother was
Swiss. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but just after the end of the War
her mother took her to live in Switzerland, for a year, perhaps longer. She
returned to England and continued her schooling. She enjoyed learning, and even
studied ancient Greek for a year. She would have liked to
stay on at school and go on to higher education, but her mother was opposed to
this.
In her twenties she married and gave birth to three
children. As the children grew older she decided to get the education she had
missed out on earlier. She enrolled at the LSE as a mature student and did a
degree in anthropology. She followed this up with an MA in Librarianship at
University College London. She then considered doing a PhD on the subject –
“Language and perception in a multicultural society”. This was based on the
principle that the language we use shapes the way in which we perceive the
world we live in. Bel wanted to examine this principle in terms of the various
versions of English spoken in different ethnic communities in Britain. It would
have been a fascinating piece of work, but sadly it never materialised.
For much of her life Bel worked as a librarian,
becoming a Senior Librarian in Barnet. She was active in her trade union, NALGO
– later UNISON - where she was a popular and effective activist. She was one of
the two million who marched against war in Iraq in February 2003 – though later
she would worry as to whether the demonstration had achieved anything. She was
fiercely anti-racist.
Retirement gave her more scope to pursue her intellectual
activities. She became a volunteer worker in the anthropology section of the
British Museum. She also started attending evening classes on topics such as political
theory. At times she would get into heated arguments with her fellow-students,
notably about the Middle East. This was the Bel Druce I met in 2010.
The two most striking things about her were her intellectual
curiosity and her capacity for friendship. She had an insatiable thirst for
knowledge, and was constantly asking questions, never willing to accept the
received orthodoxy about anything. Bel had been an active trade unionist,
supported various left-wing causes and subscribed to Red Pepper. But she
had never been a member of a political organisation.
Knowing her intellectual curiosity and her fondness
for evening classes, I suggested going to various meetings and seminars which
might interest her. We started attending meetings of the London Socialist Historians
Group. Initially I think she was a bit intimidated by the atmosphere, which
could on occasion be a little cliquish, but soon she began to participate in
the discussions, and she loved meeting up with other participants for a drink after the seminars. I introduced her to Keith
Flett’s website, which intrigued and amused her. In the summer of 2011, after
attending Marxism, she decided to join the SWP. She felt that at last, now, in
her seventies, she had found her “political home”. In 2014 she joined RS21. At
the same time she became involved in Left Unity in Barnet, where she took on
various jobs and responsibilities. She was still working her way
towards that “political home” she longed for.
For some time she had been suffering from a problem
with her left knee which made it impossible for her to walk any distance. In
the summer of 2014 she was outraged by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza but was unable
to take part in any of the massive demonstrations
in Central London. She did, however, hobble her way up from Turnpike Lane to Haringey
Civic Centre on a local demonstration.
In March this year she took part in what was to be
her last demonstration; very fittingly it was UN Anti-Racism Day. She wasn’t
able to march the full distance, but she joined us at Piccadilly Circus to walk
the last few hundred yards to Trafalgar Square. Then we went to a café. I went
to get her a cup of coffee; when I returned to the table I found her,
typically, deep in political discussion with an anti-nuclear campaigner who had
also been on the march.
Bel’s last political involvement was with the
election campaign of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition [TUSC]. She
wasn’t able to do much campaigning, but she had no less than three window bills
for the TUSC candidate in Tottenham, Jenny Sutton, in her front window, and, as
she reported, it got her into a number of political discussions with neighbours
and passers-by. The very last meeting she attended was Jenny Sutton’s final election rally.
At the beginning of June she was taken into the
North Middlesex Hospital. Bel very much appreciated the high standard of care
she received and she was able to spend her last weeks in dignity and relatively
free from pain. It was easy to see that she was trying to make friends with those
who were caring for her, but when one of the staff expressed approval of Jeremy
Hunt she immediately started an argument.
Bel’s attitude to history was aptly summed up by
Brecht’s poem:
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of
stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time?
Ian
Birchall
For a fuller account of Bel’s life go to
http://grimanddim.org/under‐the‐sod/2015‐bel‐druce/
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