Sam Watts
Sam Watts was a Liverpool communist.
Farewelling veteran communist
Morning Star supporters gathered for an inspirational social evening at Liverpool’s Casa club May 2015 in memory of veteran communist and campaigner Sam Watts, who died last year aged 89.
Mr Watts featured in the Ken Loach film The Spirit of ’45, and his interview from the film was shown on Saturday.
Speakers at the social evening included Gordon Nash, 90, a veteran comrade of Mr Watts, Carolyn Jones, director of the Liverpool-based Institute of Employment Rights, and Kevan Nelson of Merseyside Morning Star Readers and Supporters Group. Band the Peacemakers gave a lively and well-received performance.[1]
Sam Watts and the Kellys
Sam Watts with Fiona Kelly and Bob Kelly.
Cycling for Socialism
From 2014 Pedal4Progress Sam Watts interview.
"In the mid 1950’s I was working as a rigger on Liverpool Docks. I’d read my first political book (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists) at the age of 25 and it opened my eyes to the class nature of capitalist society. I was invited by a leading Mersey Docks Shop Steward Alec McKechnie to attend a Communist Party Rally at St Georges Hall in Liverpool. It was addressed by the General Secretary Harry Pollitt and I joined the Party at that meeting. I became a regular reader and seller of the Daily Worker from then onwards."
P4P How did you become the Merseyside Morning Star organiser?
"I was nominated by Bootle branch to the Merseyside area committee of the CP and then elected as Morning Star organiser. I developed a huge daily order across the Merseyside labour movement."
P4P We understand you were an early advocate of using the bike as weapon in the fight for socialism?
"Yes I organised and delivered a daily round of papers for more than 25 years. My bike was a second hand Raleigh Green. I collected at least one quire (24) of newspapers from the wholesalers and delivered them to MP’s offices including the late Eric Heffer MP, trade union buildings, unemployed centres and bookshops across Merseyside. I had a number of regular readers in the trade union centre including Billy Hayes (then a local official and now General Secretary of the CWU union). During general elections the local MP’s offices would take 25 copies daily throughout the campaign."
P4P Did the support for the paper outlast your retirement as Star Organiser?
"Yes very much. One of my regular deliveries was made to the North West TUC office and some years ago the (former) Regional Secretary Alan Manning instituted an annual appeal for the paper across the region’s trade unions. This continues to be very well supported. It replaced the Morning Star bazaar as a key source of fundraising and has raised many thousands for the fighting fund. The Merseyside group’s cycling challenge is itself an example of the goodwill which continues to exist locally."[2]