obituary Roy Jones
Labour correspondents of yore liked to see themselves as cut from a rougher and more authentic cloth than their ‘effete’ colleagues in other specialisms. One of our number, however, was the real deal. Arthur Roy Jones, who died on Sunday December 21 aged 95, had worked for decades as an itinerant pipe-fitter before becoming industrial reporter on the Morning Star. A communist and militant trade unionist, Roy had also, counterintuitively, been an RAF police officer. Much to his subsequent embarrassment, in his 30s he returned to Baden Powell’s ranks as a scoutmaster – in ill-fitting shorts apparently. Roy left school in Ellesmere Port
without qualifications aged 14, starting his career in industry as a lowly office boy in an iron works. Consequently, he had little difficulty infusing his journalism with both sympathy and empathy for working people. In his fascinating memoir, Reminiscences of a Worker Correspondent, Roy recalled that his long road to membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain began with a protest about ‘bullshit’ in the RAF, continued with resentment over his failure to win promotion in an industrial job and solidified after a conversation with a party member. Over a 20-year period, he was blacklisted as a militant trade
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unionist and was occasionally jobless as a result. He stood in council elections as a Communist candidate in Ellesmere Port – and failed to be elected five times. He was nothing if not persistent. His pipe-fitting gigs took him to all sorts of workplaces, including Buckingham Palace, where this ‘dangerous Bolshevik’ was often within yards of the Queen. David Felton, then labour correspondent at The Times, noted Roy’s amazing inability to bear grudges. David cites an example at the annual Engineering Employers’ Federation Christmas press party – a notoriously bibulous affair: “Roy was drinking with a captain of industry and discovered he was the boss who had blacklisted him on Merseyside in his pipe-fitting days. They left the party best of mates.” As an Everton fan and talented footballer, his first steps in journalism were taken at Goodison Park, writing for the Morning Star. That started a 45-year association with the paper.
His full-time career at the Star
began in 1982 at its office in Farringdon Road, just north of Fleet Street. Roy was proposed as a member of the NUJ’s Farringdon branch by Paul Routledge, then labour editor at The Times. Roy’s salary of £8,000 a year (the
average UK wage in 1982) was considerably less than that of his branch colleagues on other national
newspapers. The Soviet Union’s bulk purchasing of the Star could not compensate for the paper’s ideological distaste for commercial advertising and – it has to be said – its limited circulation. The irony of working for a pro-union paper and being paid below the going rate was not lost on Roy or his colleagues, who occasionally took industrial action to improve their lot. Fundamentally, however, they accepted that the paper could not afford Fleet Street rates. He enjoyed the friendship of most other members of the rumbustious and blokeish Labour and Industrial Correspondents’ Group and the relatively impoverished Roy was rarely allowed to buy a round. Despite a self-acknowledged
inability to make attention- grabbing speeches, Roy was eventually elected chair of Farringdon branch and subsequently to the union’s national newspaper council. On his relatively meagre salary,
he had to send money home to his wife Gladys in Ellesmere Port, who later joined him in London. At that time, communists had considerable influence at senior levels of the union movement and Roy and his wife were convinced their phone was being tapped. In those days, surveillance techniques were primitive and audible clicks gave the game away. Their flat was also broken into twice – unlike any of their neighbours’. Roy covered all the major
disputes in the mid 1980s, including the miners’ strike and the Wapping dispute with his boss Mick Costello, the Star’s industrial correspondent. “He was a grafter who was able to draw on his rich experiences in politics and the labour movement,” says Mick.
“His good sense of humour
contributed a lot to make his writing come alive. Roy will be missed by friends and colleagues in the labour movement and beyond.” On one occasion, three NUJ life members, Roy, Chris Kaufman and Mike Pentelow, went to visit Ballydehob in Cork to celebrate the birthday of another one such, Pat Mantle, who had upped sticks to the Emerald Isle. Morning Star
photographer Ernie Greenwood was among the London posse. Chris, who had been editor of the Transport and General Workers’ T&G Record and was at the time a Unite national officer, recalls: “Pat, as a civic dignitary (he was on the town council) was entrusted to deliver the results of the local lottery to all 10 pubs in Ballydehob and environs. “However, as the mine host of each establishment furnished Pat with a soothing drink, he forgot the vital numbers and was in danger of arousing the patrons’ ire until Roy came to the rescue, having jotted them down at an earlier stage.” He was one of nature’s reporters. Ex industrial correspondent
Kevin Maguire, currently a Mirror columnist, was also a mate: “Roy was a lovely man, a gentle giant. I wouldn’t have minded a revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat led by him.” His achievements in journalism and the NUJ were recognised when he was made a member of honour in 2013. Presenting the award, Anita Halpin, NUJ treasurer at the time, said: “Roy has made a tremendous contribution to the NUJ as a reporter of trade union affairs and as an effective and popular activist.” When he ‘retired’ to Colwyn Bay, Roy covered Everton home games for the Star for another 14-plus seasons and wrote a column for the paper. He also worked on papers in North Wales and became an official of the local branch. He kept in touch with his
colleagues in London as chair of the NUJ’s 60+ council. His commitment to the Colwyn
Bay community was expressed through campaigns on behalf of council estate tenants, organising benefit concerts featuring Ewan McColl and spending 14 years as press officer of the Old Colwyn Environmental Federation. Gladys, his wife of 65 years, died in 2022. He leaves three daughters, Christine, Alison and Elaine, seven grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Further tributes can be read at
https://www.nuj.org.uk/ resource/nuj-tributes-to-roy-
jones.html
Barrie Clement
DAVID NICHOLSON
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