Adios, Amigo. Brian Bamford - born 14/12/1940 - died 18/2/2022

      Brian Bamford -Editor of Northern Voices

Although I was expecting it, it is still very sad news to hear of the death of Brian Bamford, at 81. He died at home in the early hours of last Friday morning (18th February) after a long illness. He was a good mate and comrade and I will miss him greatly. It's strange not to hear his voice on the phone as he rang me many times a week for years. Although we often argued with one another over some issue or other, I liked him very much and respected him. Nevertheless, we had a great deal in common and I think we achieved something through our friendship and collaboration. 

Brian was a unique character. He had a generous nature and he lived and breathed politics. He certainly wasn't lacking when it came to having guts and he always led from the front. He was a man who would go to jail rather than pay a fine and he'd been frequently arrested for his political activities. I would sometimes jokingly say to him that he'd had more porridge than the three bears. But as an anarchist, Brian wasn't interested in political office or the parliamentary road to socialism. He was more of an industrial militant and journalist. 

In 2003, a group of us, including anarchists like Brian, had founded Northern Voices magazine after meeting in the Buffet bar in Stalybridge. Brian was elected the editor. Our aim was to produce a regional publication dedicated to local news and cultural issues in the north of England. The magazine was sold throughout Greater Manchester as well as parts of Yorkshire and Lancashire. It was even sold in Houseman's Bookshop in London and at the Freedom Bookshop, in Whitechapel, in London's East End. We also sold the magazine at the Hydra Bookshop in Bristol. The last issue of Northern Voices magazine was in 2015. We'd already gone online and both myself and Brian, became joint editors of the Northern Voices blog.

As joints editors of Northern Voices blog, we fought at least four defamation actions threatened or brought against against us. The most serious, was an action brought against us, the Guardian newspaper, the Morning Star, the GMB union, and a website called Union Solidarity International, by a former undercover police officer called Gordon Mills, who had worked for a secret police unit called NETCU. We'd also written about Mills in a booklet we wrote called 'Boys on the Blacklist'. With the help of Dave Smith and the Blacklist Support Group (BSG), and Unite the Union, we successfully resisted this action and neither apologised or paid a penny to Gordon Mills. 

Brian was a member of Unite and was the secretary of the Bury Branch of Unite. He was also the secretary of Tameside Trades Union Council. Throughout his life, Brian had been involved in many industrial disputes. In the early 1960s, he was involved in the national strike of engineering apprentices. He'd also had some involvement in the strike at Roberts Arundel in Stockport and was arrested during a strike at Arrow Mill, in Rochdale, where he worked and was the union representative. Many of the strikers were Asian workers. Both of us were also involved in the Tameside Careworkers' strike. He campaigned vigorously against the blacklist in the construction industry, and supported Steve Acheson and the other electricians, who'd been sacked on the spurious grounds of redundancy by the contractor, DAF electrical. Brian found out from Ricky Tomlinson, that he was also on the Economic League Blacklist. 

Both Brian and myself had been members of the Syndicalist Workers Federation (SWF), and had been greatly influenced by the Spanish anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT. In his younger days, Brian had been a Young Liberal. I think he once told me that what had drawn him into anarchist politics, was a book by the Russian anarchist, Prince Peter Kropotkin, called 'An Appeal to the Young', which had been circulated by the Young Liberals. He greatly admired both George Orwell and the Italian writer, Ignazio Silone, who had written the anti fascist novel 'Fontamara' and 'The School for Dictators'. A novel he particularly liked, was Nostromo, by Joseph Conrad. 

During the 1960s, Brian and his first wife Joan, had worked and lived in Spain under the Dictatorship of General Franco. He spoke Spanish and could argue and curse in Spanish. He was once arrested by the police at Victoria Train Station in Manchester because he wouldn't remove his goat from the train which he was taking to the vets near Bolton. As the copper dragged him off the train, Brian could be heard shouting - 'Cabron', 'Cabron', a Spanish insult that means arsehole, son of a bitch, bastard, and male goat'. He spent the rest of the day, locked up in Boodle Street police station. I wrote a report for Freedom Press on both of his trials at the City Magistrates Court and the Crown Court which heard his appeal. I can assure you that the proceedings were hilarious. We were all thoroughly entertained. 

Brian was a great influence on me and I learned a lot from him. I had known him since my early twenties and we collaborated closely for over forty years. I will remember him always with the deepest affection. Adios, Amigo. RIP.

Derek Pattison,

Northern Voices.