Freddy Gore
One of the Communists barred from holding office in the ETU from 1965, Freddy Gore had left school at the age of 13 in 1939 (since the school had no air-raid shelters!). He enlisted in the Royal Navy four years later, and served as a seaman torpedo-man for 2 years, often in the Pacific Ocean, and was demobbed in 1946.
Before debarment, Freddy Gore was a significant representative at what was then known as LondonAirport, or Heathrow. Entering the skilled section of the E.T.U. in 1949, he soon became shop steward in a local factory and was convener there for four years. Obtaining work with British European Airways when the corporation transferred its engineering base from Northolt to LondonAirport, he was elected shop steward and then senior ETU shop steward. He was elected to the 1964 Trade Union Congress and had attended the union’s policy conferences regularly since 1960 and was a delegate to the special rules conference in 1962.
A member of his ETU area committee, he also represented the union on the Advisory Committee of the City and Guilds on Aeronautical Subjects.
He served as Feltham branch chairman and secretary and was elected unopposed as secretary of the new LondonAirport branch of the union.
His other jobs included secretary of the BEA Joint Shop Stewards’ Committee, chairman of the local engineering and maintenance panel.
In 1964, he featured In a BBC programme on the work of shop stewards.
Gore had organised delegations of airport workers to the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia.
Source: Daily Worker 28th August 1964
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