John Gibson
John William Gibson was born on December 2nd 1920 in Chester. Both his parents were strongly committed to social justice; his father was a metal worker.
Like most of his contemporaries, John left school at 14 years and went to work in an engineering factory. He worked in the north-western area in various placed over the next decade; he worked on the then secret sonar project at Horwich and was later in the RAF.
He joined the Communist Party in 1943 after hearing Harry Pollitt speak in Liverpool and remained loyal both to the Party and to the city for the rest of his life.
From the late 1950s, he was a CND activist and was a full-time Communist Party worker in the 1960s, also one of its local election candidates, and was a later enthusiastic volunteer for the Party’s bookshop in Berry Street. For 27 years, he was the north-west circulation representative for “Soviet Weekly”.
John Gibson was also a prime mover in the building in Liverpool of strong branches of both the British-Soviet Friendship Society and the German Democratic Republic Friendship Society. He and his wife, Veronica (they married in 1954) often entertained visiting delegations and dignitaries from both countries at their convivial home in Algburth and set up events at Liverpool town hall around these visits. John Gibson died, aged 82, on September 3rd 2003.
Source: Guardian October 28th 2003
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