Dot Light
Dorothy Light was an active Communist Party member in the Woolston & Sholing branch, part of the Southampton area of the Hampshire & Dorset district of the Party.
During the 1950s and 1960s, her branch of some dozen members (17 in 1961) regularly met at her flat.
She helped the local Communist District display a huge 16-sheet poster on a hoarding opposite the exit to Thorneycrofts Naval shipyard at Woolston in 1961. It cost the Party the mammoth sum of £5 4s. Thorneycrofts was famous in Communist Party, because Harry Pollitt had once worked there as a boilermaker.
Harry Pollitt had moved to Southampton in June 1915, lodging with Harry Ratcliffe, a boilermakers’ delegate. As there was no BSP branch Harry joined the ILP. Boilermakers at Thorneycrofts were well-organised and Pollitt joined the Woolston branch and was soon leading strikes against non union labour.
“While in Southampton, Harry Pollitt also witnessed the arrival of the white hospital ships with their green bands and red crosses move slowly into the docks each morning, bringing wounded soldiers home from France "an indelible picture of agony and suffering they bore" was etched in his mind. He saw the
During the war years, Communist Party members were heavily involved, in leading positions, on
Dot Light, a
Sources: World News
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