Isaac Torbe
Isaac’s first political action was at the battle of Cable Street and, in 1937, he joined the Communist Party, remaining a staunch Communist throughout his life. He graduated from Queen Mary College in 1939 with a BSc in mathematics, but then the war interrupted his academic progress. It took another decade before he achieved his doctorate, shortly after joining the staff at Southampton University.
He maintained political work in Southampton all his years there, against a difficult background of personal ill health combined with caring for his ailing wife and autistic younger daughter, being active in CND, Scientists Against Nuclear Arms, the Chile Solidarity Campaign and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
In the late 1990s, Isaac found time to fulfil a long held desire to "update" Frederick Engels’s critique of Düring and his `Dialectics of Nature’, writing and publishing his book, `The Nature of Nature – The Dialectics of Reality’, the proceeds of which he donated to the paper.
In his final years, Issac was known more widely as the compiler of the Morning Star’s notoriously difficult crossword until his death in July 2007.
Source: obituary by Anna Ridehalgh and Dave Smith Morning Star 16th July 2007
Be the first to comment