It originally stated that Tony Farsky failed his 11-plus and so went to a secondary modern school. This article was amended on 23 January 2019. He was a well-known figure in Southwark, speaking every Sunday at open-air meetings held by the Communist party in East Lane. Despite ailing health and eventual immobility, he remained active in the pensioners’ movement and various other campaigning initiatives. Tony retired from teaching in 1983, after 36 years.
Tony was a jazz enthusiast and pianist and put his talents to good use for fundraising events. She and Tony organised large concerts in support of the British Peace Committee and the Communist party, as well as art shows in their large home in Sydenham, south-east London. Florence, known as Flo, worked as a union secretary and for London Trades Council. They were both very active in the British Peace Committee, a forerunner of CND, and campaigned for the Stockholm peace appeal, which helped to bring about the Helsinki accords on security and co-operation in Europe in 1975 – a big breakthrough in the cold war.Īfter the World Disarmament Campaign was founded in 1979, Tony became its treasurer. He met his wife, Florence (nee Denham), in Staithes, Yorkshire, at a Communist party educational week, and they married in 1946. Each weekend he would go into Liverpool to fetch a suitcase of communist literature to sell and distribute at his base.Īfter being demobbed Tony did a teacher training course in Worcester, specialising in history and art. When the second world war broke out he was called up and given basic training on radio and equipment maintenance in the RAF.
He joined the Communist party as a youngster after being taken to a meeting where he heard the renowned orator Harry Pollitt speak. He was a member of the Communist party’s London education advisory committee and a contributor to its education journal, Education for Today and Tomorrow.īorn in Dulwich, south London, to Lilian (nee Jones), a domestic servant and cleaner, and Anthony Farsky, a lift installer, Tony went to a local senior school, leaving aged 15. Tony was chair of Southwark National Union of Teachers on two occasions during the 80s. In 1973 he was finally appointed head of Gordonbrock primary school, Lewisham, after applying unsuccessfully for a number of jobs – he felt he had been blacklisted as a union activist.
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